Starting 2015 in disaster

The year 2015 is just two days old today. Unfortunately, we have to meet the new year on a rather sad note. As expected, there were so many reported incidents of deaths and injuries from firecrackers and stray bullets in the midst of New Year revelries.

But the sadder news is the reported deaths from typhoon “Seniang” that battered Visayas and Mindanao provinces due to landslides and widespread flooding in affected areas. The number of deaths due to Seniang reached 54 as of yesterday.

While the death toll from Seniang seemed to be comparatively small when ranged against the reported firecracker-related injuries, the tragedy of lives lost due to something that can be avoided made it glaring to say the least. 

The Department of Health (DOH) reported a total of 173 revelers injured due to firecrackers on New Year’s eve alone. Obviously, the usual DOH scare campaign did not stop Filipinos from their traditional celebration of the New Year’s eve using firecrackers.

The DOH, however, insisted yesterday the firecracker-related incidents of injuries were much lower compared with previous years. However, there were more amputations. Thus, DOH acting Secretary Dr. Janette Garin vowed she would vigorously pursue a proposed legislation by Congress to impose an extreme measure — a total ban on firecrackers for public use.

In a press conference yesterday, Garin announced she would ask President Aquino to certify as priority any pending bill in Congress that seeks to prohibit the use of firecrackers by the public. She said the DOH would push for community-based fireworks displays handled by “professionals.” You wish.

Despite faced with the challenge of traditional firecracker use as principal noisemaking activities for the New Year celebration, the DOH remained on the ball to carry out the almost mission impossible task. We could not say the same thing though for those in charge at the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council (NDRRMC).

Blame it on climate change that we are now being visited by typhoons even during Christmas and New Year’s day. Admittedly, however, the country is visited by 20 typhoons on the average.

Thanks to a better-equipped Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration (PAGASA), the weather forecasting capability of the agency has become more reliable. According to PAGASA, Seniang – the 19th cyclone to enter the country this year – brought more rains over a 24-hour period.

With such reliability of PAGASA, it enabled the NDRRMC to help prepare local government units (LGUs) from the onslaught of “Ruby” earlier in December. Initially forecast as a super typhoon, luckily, Ruby weakened after it made landfall in the Visayas and Mindanao.

Ruby forced more than one million people to flee to safer ground and evacuation shelters. In fact, a United Nations agency called it one of the world’s biggest peacetime evacuations. Lessons learned from super typhoon Yolanda prompted the massive evacuation.

On the other hand, Seniang reportedly triggered the evacuation of more than 86,000 people in Surigao del Sur, Bohol and Cebu provinces before it weakened into a tropical depression. Nonetheless, Seniang apparently caused more fatalities than typhoon Ruby (international name Hagupit). It left some 18 people dead per official record of the NDRRMC.

Most of the fatalities related to typhoon Seniang were due to landslides in Catbalogan, Samar, one of the hardest hit provinces. According to Samar Gov. Sharee Ann Tan, rescuers retrieved the bodies of 20 people, including a three-year-old girl, buried in the landslide that hit three villages in Barangay Mercedes in Catbalogan City.

At an earlier press briefing at the Palace, presidential spokesman Edwin Lacierda was quoted saying the government was hoping there would be no casualties and that it had prepared sufficiently for Seniang since the residents in areas to be affected by the storm were supposedly evacuated already.

In radio interviews, the Samar governor appealed to national government authorities to pour more disaster rescue and relief operations to landslide-stricken areas in her province. She deplored the failure of alerting people in areas already identified in the geo-hazard maps as prone to landslides.

Standard operating procedure (SOP) of pre-disaster preparations includes, among other things, pre-positioning of rescue and relief equipment in areas in the direct path of typhoons. These were followed before Ruby’s onslaught. Are these SOPs of the NDRRMC applied only in cases of super typhoons?

Or were the NDRRMC officials already on holiday when Seniang came during the long weekend?

The NDRRMC is co-chaired by the secretaries of the Department of National Defense (Voltaire Gazmin) and the Department of the Interior and Local Government (Mar Roxas II). But the day-to-day operations of the NDRRMC are handled by its executive director (retired Navy chief Alexander Pama).

I know for a fact the DILG Secretary took a holiday leave and went to New York with his wife for a much deserved break. So, naturally, the second-in-command at DILG should take over. Gazmin, I gathered, is here in the country but like the rest of government officials and employees, is on holiday break.

So it was only Pama who was present last Tuesday when he called a press conference on the post-disaster report on Seniang.

Incidentally, President Aquino was seen in public as “witness of honor” in the Dong-Yan wedding also last Tuesday. But the President was quoted having issued orders to the NDRRMC to ensure rescue and relief operations. Fine.

The NDRRMC’s mandate is disaster mitigation. As earlier disclosed by outgoing rehabilitation czar presidential assistant Panfilo Lacson, the law that created the NDRRMC is due for review this year by the congressional oversight body.

For a disaster-prone country, this is a good opportunity for the 16th Congress to strengthen the aspect of pre-disaster mandate of the NDRRMC. With his administration having barely one and half years left of his term, President Aquino cannot afford to start 2015 in disaster.