Social fabric

How much longer will the social fabric hold in the most devastated areas?

Last Tuesday, DILG Secretary Mar Roxas sounded an optimistic tone by declaring that looting in Tacloban has subsided. Later in the day, however, his assessment was flatly contradicted by a Tacloban-based businessman who fled to Cebu for his own safety.

Looting in Tacloban, said the businessman, subsided only because there was nothing else to loot. Incidents of looting, however, broke out in other towns in Samar and Leyte. Armed marauders broke into private homes and robbed the residents. A cargo ship grounded on the coast was quickly stripped of its load. Two gun shops were emptied of their dangerous content.

The relatively wealthy are fleeing the devastated towns for their own safety. The poor, without much choice, are forced to sleep on the streets beside rotting corpses, wondering when aid will come.

Government made much about having “pre-positioned” relief supplies in the threatened areas. Yet, each hour, we hear reports from the ground from victims saying they have not received aid.

The Secretary of Agriculture boasted on television that the NFA warehouse in Tacloban was brimming with rice supplies. Journalists on the ground say the warehouse is empty. Local executives in Samar and Leyte are saying their supplies will not last beyond the day.

The only government lifeline to Tacloban and the rest of the devastated region are three overworked and barely airworthy C130 cargo planes of the Air Force. Until American planes and choppers from a nearby aircraft carrier join the action, our airlift capacity will be sorely thin.

Just weeks ago, shortly after a major earthquake rocked Bohol, our government proudly announced the purchase of 12 probably obsolete South Korean fighter planes. That purchase haunts us today.

Those 12 fighter planes have no use during large calamities like this one. They are vanity toys for those amused by the trappings of power. Those 12 jet planes will impress none of our neighbors. It would have been more economic if we used the money to buy more cargo planes or multi-tasking helicopters. If we bought choppers instead of jet planes, the isolated towns of Samar and Leyte might have been reached much earlier, saving many lives.

Five days after the super typhoon struck, many interior towns of Samar and Leyte have yet to see a bag of relief items. There are not even enough body bags to contain all the corpses. The stench of death permeates the air in the two forsaken islands.

The global community responded with overwhelming sympathy. Dozens of nations pledge to deliver support, including mobile hospitals and trained rescue teams.

Our own people responded overwhelmingly, sending food items, cash and clothes to the Red Cross and media organizations. Local doctors have offered to go to the disaster areas to assist the wounded and the sick. Our corporations have responded admirably, offering millions in emergency assistance.

The great flood of relief items, however, is held back by our own logistical limitations. There is only so much the three cargo planes could bring to the damaged Tacloban airport. The ro-ro system, thank heavens, enables the flow of relief overland and through the nautical highway system. But with obsolete port facilities in the smaller island towns, even that channel is constricted.

This administration must take responsibility for the backwardness of our logistics system. In 2010, a foreign-assisted program to modernize the small island ports was whimsically scrapped. The nautical highway system was left unattended by the do-nothing DOTC, presumably because it was a flagship program of the previous administration.

Fortunately, private logistics companies grew remarkably the last few years. The logistics assets of Air 21, Aboitiz, PAL and Cebu Pacific have supplemented the limited assets of government. They deserve a word of credit in these desperate times.

The telecommunications companies, too, deserve credit for the superhuman efforts they put in to restore some of their damaged capacity in the devastated islands. The brave journalists who braved the storm and withstood the calamity to report from the disaster zone and bring us the true dimensions of the crisis performed acts of heroism. Without real time reporting from the ground, we might have had to rely on what people like Proceso Alcala and Edwin Lacierda tell us, along with the mysteriously slow body count provided by the NDRRMC.

Despite the flood of foreign assistance and the heroic efforts of our own people, it will take time to nurture the devastated provinces back to normalcy.

The best estimate for restoring power distribution in Samar and Leyte is 6 months. Without power supply, nothing will work in the devastated areas. Businesses will remain shut. Local governments will not be fully functional. Millions of Filipinos will rely on charity to subsist from day to day.

We will need billions to rehabilitate the almost totally demolished towns and cities that stood in Yolanda’s path. Samar and Leyte are among our poorest provinces. Now they are also among the most miserable, bereft of an economy and a functioning public safety framework.

Those with the opportunity to leave will likely do so, draining the disaster zone of wealth and talent. Those left behind will be cursed, unless a comprehensive rehabilitation plan that begins with restoring livelihood kicks off soon.

Strangely, it took several days for the Aquino administration to swallow its pride and ask the world for help. It might take a little longer for our leaders to gather their wits and put together a rehabilitation program, complete with an international financing plan.

Meanwhile, the social fabric in the devastated zones will be under great strain.