Philippine News
City council places Tacloban under state of calamity
(Photo: Eoghan Rice – Trócaire / Caritas; Wikipedia)” width=”300″ height=”200″ />
Debris lines the streets of Tacloban, Leyte island. This region was the worst affected by the typhoon, causing widespread damage and loss of life. Caritas is responding by distributing food, shelter, hygiene kits and cooking utensils. (Photo: Eoghan Rice – Trócaire / Caritas; Wikipedia)TACLOBAN CITY -– The city council has placed on Tuesday the entire city under a state of calamity due to impacts of typhoon Ruby that would derail the city’s recovery from super typhoon Yolanda.
City Vice Mayor Jerry Yaokasin said the declaration would allow the local government to use the calamity fund, propose for supplemental budget and enforce price control measures.
“The city mayor’s office requested to declare state of calamity for only 66 villages, but we decided cover all 138 villages so we can sustain our recovery efforts after Yolanda,” Yaokasin said.
The declaration will allow the city government to use automatic appropriations to procure supplies for the repair of houses damaged by typhoon Ruby.
“We placed the city under the state of calamity not because we suffered too much damage.
We just want to operationalize the calamity fund and automatic price control of basic and prime commodities,”
Section 3 of Republic Act 10121, known as the “Philippine Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Act of 2010,” defines a State of Calamity as “a condition involving mass casualty and/or major damages to property, disruption of means of livelihoods, roads and normal way of life of people in the affected areas as a result of the occurrence of natural or human-induced hazard.”
