07 April 2015 - “We are emergency-response ready,” Philippine Consul General Generoso D.G. Calonge declared as he led the regular personnel of the Philippine Consulate General in Chicago in receiving certificates of completion from the Office of Emergency Management and Communications (OEMC) of the City of Chicago at the Consulate General’s Kalayaan Hall on March 26.
The Consulate General’s officers and staff braved the snow and freezing temperatures to complete the 24-hour Chicago Community Emergency Response Team (CERT) Basic Training, held mostly at the 18th Police District Office on Chicago’s north side, after office hours every Monday and Thursday from February 23 to March 19.
The training, which is offered to the public four times a year, free of charge, covers a wide range of topics including terrorism, disaster medical operations, fire suppression, light search and rescue, and psychology of disaster victims. In essence, it concretizes the integral role of the local community in the conduct of an all-hazards response under the National Response Framework adopted by the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
Consul General Calonge thanked officials of the OEMC, which manages the Chicago CERT program, Chicago Fire Department and Chicago Police Department for providing the Consulate General an opportunity to build up its capacity as an organization. He also stressed the value of the personnel’s acquisition of new skills, particularly in responding to various types of disasters as force multipliers that will help first responders achieve the “greatest good for the greatest number.”
The personnel concerned may then be called upon to serve as members of the Chicago CERT in emergency and non-emergency functions, such as in large public events to be held in the city, on a purely voluntary basis. This also sets them on the path of receiving supplemental training with little or no cost in weather spotting, amateur radio operation, cardio-pulmonary resuscitation, and other aspects of emergency response. END