FALSE

Senate bet and actor Robin Padilla got it wrong when he said recently that Visayas and Mindanao have to await Manila’s decision before they can declare a state of calamity.

Republic Act 10121 or the Philippine Disaster Reduction and Management Act empowers all local government units other than the president to autonomously declare a state of calamity.

Section 16 of the law states that other than the President, “the declaration and lifting of the state of calamity may also be issued by the local sanggunian, upon the recommendation of the Local Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council.”

Padilla made the erroneous remark in a video uploaded April 16 on his Facebook page in which he advocated for a shift to a federal form of government. He said this would allow local governments in Visayas and Mindanao to declare a state of calamity on their own.

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FactRakers is a Philippines-based fact-checking initiative of journalism majors at the University of the Philippines-Diliman working under the supervision of Associate Professor Yvonne T. Chua of the University of the Philippines’ Journalism Department. Associate Professor Ma. Diosa Labiste, also of the Journalism Department, serves as editorial consultant.

The name of the initiative, coined from the words “fact” and “raker,” is inspired by the term “muckrakers,” first used in the early 1900s by American president Theodore Roosevelt to express his annoyance at progressive, reform-minded journalists at the time.

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