Coordination lag surfaces in Iloilo City’s emergency drill

ILOILO CITY – Despite generally satisfactory response times, the Iloilo City Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Office (CDRRMO) identified a coordination bottleneck among emergency response agencies during the city’s first weekly full-scale simulation exercise (SIMEX) on Wednesday, Sept. 16.

The scenario involved a motorcycle accident with two victims along McArthur Highway in Barangay Buhang, Jaro, in front of the Buhang Caltex station.

Darwin Joemil Papa, chief of the CDRRMO’s Emergency Response Division, said the exercise primarily tested the response time of emergency units, coordination, and resource utilization.

Papa said the responding units performed satisfactorily in terms of response time and resource use.

Coordination, however, emerged as a bottleneck.

“We have encountered an issue in terms of coordination. We already expect that during the activation of our dispatch and the relay of information to other agencies, such as the Bureau of Fire Protection (BFP), Philippine National Police (PNP), Public Order and Safety Management Office (POSMO), there could be delays because our current setup requires us to call each agency individually. That is where we identified the bottleneck in terms of coordination,” he said.

Papa said the exercise showed that the current communication system could be improved to allow simultaneous activation of different emergency response agencies.

Despite the coordination issue, he said individual response times were generally within acceptable levels.

The PNP, which was activated through the Iloilo City Action and Resilience (ICARE) Center in Bankers Village, Jaro, arrived at the scene about two minutes after activation, he said.

POSMO traffic enforcers arrived within a minute of activation, while the BFP reached the area about three minutes after being alerted.

Papa said the CDRRMO’s medical emergency response took longer because nearby units were unavailable during the exercise.

The medical emergency units in Bankers Village and Balabago were either responding to other calls or temporarily out of service for disinfection after transporting a patient, he said.

The nearest available medical units were therefore dispatched from Ungka, and Papa said they took about 10 minutes to reach the simulated victim via the Circumferential Road.

“Being the first exercise, we expected to encounter issues and concerns. The weather also affected us somewhat, but overall, the performance was considered very satisfactory. It was only in coordination where we fell below our satisfactory level,” Papa said.

The city government launched the weekly SIMEX program to strengthen disaster preparedness, emergency response capabilities, and coordination among response agencies.

The exercises are designed to test the readiness of responders under simulated emergency conditions in different parts of the city.

The exercises will use the city’s network of ICARE Centers to measure the handling of emergency calls, from receiving and processing reports to dispatching and deploying responders.

Weekly emergency scenarios will vary and include fire and rescue operations, mass-casualty traffic incidents, urban flooding, extrication, and other public safety emergencies.

Iloilo City operates 10 ICARE Centers, each covering a designated area of responsibility and housing personnel from the police, the CDRRMO, POSMO, the Transportation and Traffic Management Office, and the BFP.

The Bankers Village facility in Jaro, which activated the police response during Wednesday’s drill, was inaugurated on April 1, 2026 as the city’s ninth ICARE Center.