on philippines' emergency relief operations

base on what I have read, it seems that the relief operations are moving in a very slow pace. If I’m not mistaken, there are more foreign military presence in the rescue operations than that from our own government. I may be wrong and I’m not writing this to add to the bashing to the president’s governance, the government itself, senators and other officials but to share what I think are the weak points in the rescue operations and the infrastructure plans especially to natural disaster inflicted regions that should have been done eons ago. On the aftermath of the storm it was already determined that the roads are unpassable therefore what could have been decided at once for alternative measures are by air and sea. Helicopters could drop food supplies and if there is not enough air transport, the government could have requested use of private helicopters from private organizations. Survivors in Ormoc, Tacloban, Leyte, Samar have already lost their houses so at the moment they have nothing to look forward to there which means these survivors must be relocated to a region where all the operations and logistics could be very well performed. It is a huge struggle to disperse medical teams, distribute relief aids, and much more to strategize channels of communication if the survivors are randomly scattered in various areas. These isolated clusters of survivors must be all gathered in or relocated to perhaps in Cebu or Davao. Before the calamity, Yolanda’s coming was already announced so it has been expected that the local government and jurisdictions, to name Department of Health and Department of Social Work, started planning on emergency preparedness, preservation, relief and recovery plans, have assessed susceptibility and determine risks involved and alternative plans. As well, the same plans should be also implemented by local communities of various regions. I trust that all these have been done before the onslaught, but looking at how these are being done, I am starting to doubt that the disaster planning and strategy measures had infact ensued. according to typhoon statistics, Philippines gets 20 cyclones in a year. I was only 5 years old when Yuling and Sening made a landfall and caused havoc to our country. Forty three years passed since my first experience of Yuling and still our country remains groping in the dark on evacuation centre management. Have there been funds allocated for capital projects like building evacuation shelters not only for flood but also for other disasters like earthquake, equipped with necessities like toilets and water tanks? The answer, I believe, is explicit by the way the past and current calamities are handled and from the stories, photos and dissatisfied comments of Filipinos nationwide. There must be a huge and significant overhaul to be done in order to strengthen the capacity of our government’s response for the sake of its countrymen especially in times of natural disasters. It is certainly is high time for Philippines to experience a momentous change.

photo courtesy of newsinfo.inquirer.net