Isabela Mayor Irene Montilla is planning to replicate Bacolod City’s Emergency Operations Center Task Force (EOC-TF) in her locality.

Montilla visited the EOC-TF Command Center at the MassKara Hall of the Bacolod City Government Center on October 7 to observe its actual emergency response activities for benchmarking.

The mayor was accompanied by Isabela’s Municipal Health Officer Dr. Rama Espinosa, department heads of Isabela’s Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Office (DRRMO) and Accounting and Budget Office, other municipal officials, and barangay captains.

Montilla met with Inter-Agency Task Force Visayas chief implementer Mel Feliciano and City Administrator Em Ang, who is also the executive director of EOC.

Both Feliciano and Ang welcomed the idea of EOC replication in other local government units.

“The important thing is, it should be centralized. There should only be one control. Everything will be handled by the emergency operation center,” said Feliciano, who is expecting more local chief executives to pay the Bacolod EOC a visit.

The EOC-TF was institutionalized upon Bacolod City Mayor Evelio Leonardia’s issuance of Executive Order No. 59 on Sept. 3.

The task force was created for the synchronization and harmonization of data and activities geared towards containing the spread of Covid-19 disease.

According to Ang, Montilla is eyeing to replicate the EOC “but on a smaller scale since [Isabela] is also small.”

“Its good to know that other LGUs are looking forward to replicating our Covid-19 Emergency Operations Center. We would be happy to share our best practices with them,” Ang added./WDJ