The Philippine Economic Zone Authority (PEZA) is taking a more active role in managing the country’s ecozones, partnering with government agencies on various initiatives on safety and disaster resilience.
Charito Plaza, PEZA director-general, said the agency and the Philippine National Police (PNP) are setting up a
Joint Industrial Peace Concerns Office (JIPCO) as part of efforts to ease doing business inside the ecozones and to ensure the safety and welfare of the workers and locators.
JIPCO requires PNP to detail police personnel in a strategically located Police Community Precinct (PCP), which is provided by PEZA and ecozone stakeholders. The PCP shall be situated along the periphery of ecozones.
The PEZA-PNP initiative has first been launched in Region III on January 22.
PEZA also conducted a consultative meeting on February 12 to check the readiness to respond to disaster and emergencies and enhance the disaster preparedness of its developers, operators, and enterprises in Metro Manila in anticipation for the large-magnitude earthquake and other calamities and emergencies that may occur.
Aside from its Military Reservist Program, which is now being strengthened in partnership with the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP), PEZA is now doing its own measures to prevent the risks and loss of lives as ecozones have thousands of workers and hundreds of industries and companies.
One of the said measures is by training PEZA employees, ecozones and industry workers on disaster and emergency response with a goal of ensuring investors on the safety and security of the country’s ecozones.
Plaza said PEZA will now require ecozone developers to submit their emergency response plans for man-made and natural disasters and emergencies and their business continuity plans after the disaster and emergencies.
