The Unfair Typhoon 'Blame Game' of CNN and the Rest (Philippine
Daily Inquirer, Philippines)
"We coulda done this, or we shoulda gone that way, or we woulda made more of a difference. And to buttress our self-flagellation, we misquote or take out of context what foreigners have to say about our relief efforts. ... People should understand that Anderson Cooper's analysis of the relief efforts were based on only one location: Tacloban Airport. ... The military is not alone getting a raw deal here. Local government officials (alright, maybe some of them are tying their relief services to votes) have been criticized, too. And so has the central government, including the president. I think they’ve done a hell of a job."
Philippines President Benigno Aquino: Is the world judging he and his government too harshly, given the scale of the disaster wrought by Typhoon Haiyan?
Shoulda, woulda, coulda. That seems to be the blame game everyone is playing
now with regard to our relief efforts. We coulda done
this, or we shoulda gone that way, or we woulda made more of a difference. And to buttress our
self-flagellation, we misquote or take out of context what foreigners have to
say about our relief efforts.
Take
U.N. emergency relief coordinator Valerie Amos for example. Her analysis of the
situation was absolutely balanced, but by the time it reached us, her comments were
made to look critical of the Philippine government. No one paid attention to
the reasons she gave for the difficulty of distributing relief supplies: a lack
of air assets (not including the fact that Tacloban Airport
was destroyed and took three days to reopen), a shortage of vehicles for waste
management (so debris and roadblocks could be cleared), a lack of coordination by
local officials (understandable, she said, as they, too, were affected by the
storm). I cannot see how the government is answerable for that.
Anderson
Cooper came on day 5. He was aghast at conditions there and probably didn’t
know that the airport reopened on day 4. He said things like “the scene here at
the airport is desperate;” “I have not seen a large Philippine military
presence out around here;” “Philippine military personnel are cleaning up the
area around the airport … first time we’re seeing this;” and “people line up
and they are here all day for a handful of flights.” People should understand
that his analysis of Philippine relief efforts were based on only one location:
Tacloban Airport. While Cooper did walk around, he
was constrained by the fact that there were NO VEHICLES available, so his
analysis was severely limited.
Of
course, Defense Secretary Volt Gazmin didn’t help
matters. He was quoted as saying that there was something wrong with the system,
and that politics was rearing its ugly head. In the first instance, although he
chairs the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Committee, he was at
a loss to explain where the bottleneck was. In the second instance, he
apparently based his conclusions about politics based on two victims, the
circumstances of which he then extrapolated to the whole of local government
(which is the same logic Cooper used).
The corpse of a man who didn't make it through
the typhoon, his
suitcase nearby, Tacloban
City, the Philippines.
But
I’d like to focus on the alleged lack of Philippine military presence (although
Cooper admitted that they were cleaning up the area around the airport). I
called up Armed Forces Chief of Staff General Emmanuel Bautista, who gave
details of the military's participation. The military participated, quietly
(perhaps too quietly), but effectively. The conversation with Bautista was
followed by a seven-page report from Colonel Ramon Zagala.
“Yolanda”
hit land on Nov. 8 and wiped out all communications. Army commander for the
Eastern Visayas, Brigadier General Jet Belarmino at his headquarters beside the Tacloban
airport, had to bore a hole in the ceiling of his quarters to survive the
rising waters. Air Force Lieutenant Colonel FerminCarangan was swept out to sea for six hours, but managed to
survive and save a seven-year-old boy in the process.
Posted By Worldmeets.US
The
first military sortie was carried out on Nov. 9 by the GHQ Crisis Action Team
and medical teams with 7,000 pounds of relief supplies and food packs that were
prepared four-five days earlier. The Air Force and Navy began transporting
Humanitarian Assistance and Disaster Relief and equipment coordinated by a
command post in the Tacloban police station. A C-130
was used to bring 50 drums of oil for other air assets to use in rescue and
transport operations. The same efforts were made in the cities of Roxas and Iloilo. Two Navy ships (DF 341 and DF 352) were
also deployed to bring aid and relief to Carles and
Estancia in northern Iloilo.
By
Nov. 9, other ships and air assets were carrying everything from cadaver bags
to medicines to food, as well as communications equipment, fuel and personnel
to Roxas, Kalibo, Aklan, San Jose, Antique, Guiuan
in Eastern Samar; northern Panay, northern Palawan (including Coron), Negros Island, Masbate, and Cebu City. How do you
think we obtained information that 7,251 barangays
in 471 municipalities and 51 cities in 41 provinces, involving 2.1 million
families, were devastated?
By
Thursday, 15 naval vessels had transported relief goods, equipment and
personnel to affected areas in Eastern and Western Visayas.
Aircraft had flown 216 sorties carrying 379,369 pounds of relief supplies and
267,183 pounds of other cargo (fuel, equipment, etc.). The military literally
threw everything it had into the effort, including land vehicles (81 trucks),
23 aircraft, and 17 Navy vessels (from five to 2,000 tons). This, aside from
the 3,000 men sent to help the 12,000 men already in the area. It established
six monitoring hubs over the Visayas, presided over
by five brigadier generals and one colonel - serving the Filipino people.
Not
enough? No presence? Please. Certainly not from want of trying - and this even
given the limitations of equipment because money was going elsewhere.
The
military is not alone getting a raw deal here. Local government officials (alright,
maybe some of them are tying their relief services to votes) have been
criticized, too. And so has the central government, including the president. I
think they’ve done a hell of a job. They cannot be judged based on one city
alone -Tacloban. Consider this: Do you really think
anyone could have done better there, when 98 percent of the city had been
destroyed, including its airport?
