SC forms emergency response team

MANILA, Philippines - The Supreme Court (SC) is forming an emergency response team (ERT) in areas devastated by Super Typhoon Yolanda to augment government efforts to aid survivors.

The high court said the team would be in place on Monday “to assist in medical and relief efforts, as well as to locate and aid distressed court personnel in the Visayas.”

The team is composed of volunteers from the various offices of the court trained to respond in emergency and disaster situations. Buses of the high court’s Enhanced Justice on Wheels project will ferry the ERT and supplies to the affected areas, particularly in Tacloban and Ormoc Cities in Leyte.

Court Administrator Jose Midas Marquez has been tasked to supervise the operation.

Marquez and the Deputy Court Administrators “assigned in the affected areas were directed to closely monitor their respective areas of assignments and propose further remedial measures to address the urgent needs of the affected judges and court personnel,” the SC said in a statement.

Earlier this week, the SC had aided judges and court personnel in areas devastated by the typhoon by giving them a two-week calamity leave from Nov. 11 to Nov. 25. It also approved the advanced release of their salaries until Nov. 30.

Apart from this, the SC, through the office of Associate Justice Jose Mendoza, has initiated a relief drive to assist the government in providing basic needs to survivors in areas devastated by the strongest recorded typhoon in the world to make a landfall.

 â€œIt’s a campaign for people to give bottles of water, which will be turned over to Yolanda victims,” SC spokesman Theodore Te said in a text message.