Yolanda, other typhoons taught gov’t to improve response – PBBM

By Ruth Abbey Gita-Carlos, Philippine News Agency

FILE: Intermittent heavy rains submerge Oroquieta Street in Sta. Cruz, Manila on Tuesday (July 23, 2024). (PNA photo by Joan Bondoc)

MANILA – Super Typhoon Yolanda (international name Haiyan), as well as the recent tropical cyclones that severely hit the Philippines, taught the government to improve its disaster response, President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr. said Friday.

In a statement during the commemoration of the 11th anniversary of Yolanda that left thousands of people dead in November 2013, Marcos said there is no room for complacency in preparing for disasters, considering that the country is still recovering from Severe Tropical Storm Kristine (Trami) and Super Typhoon Leon (Kong-rey).

“Calamities are teaching moments and every one that came after Yolanda delivered a payload of lessons that instructed us how to improve our response,” Marcos said.

“As the most disaster-prone country in the world, we cannot do otherwise. We do not have the luxury of ignorance, inaction and complacency. Thus, we must intensify our efforts to mitigate and adapt to the challenges of climate change and urgently abate our vulnerability to disasters,” he added.

Marcos stressed that while no one is to blame for the damage and loss of lives during the tropical cyclones’ onslaught, the government should make sure that “what the state owed to impacted people and places will be satisfactorily settled.”

He said the government must do everything to make communities “more resilient” to enable them to brace better against typhoons and build back better after the disasters.

“Amidst our ongoing recovery from typhoons Kristine and Leon, we commemorate the 11th anniversary of (Super) Typhoon Yolanda. Our ongoing crucibles remind us that the powerful lessons brought by the strongest typhoon in history should not be lost with the passage of time. Heeding these is the best way to honor the lives lost,” Marcos said.

“Since then, we have strengthened institutional bulwarks against calamities, which our countrymen have matched with increasing care and compassion for those affected. It is also because of this bayanihan (cooperation) of our race that the pain of victims is assuaged and the rebuilding of homes and livelihoods is accelerated.”

Marcos expressed gratitude to the international community for providing assistance to the Philippines to ensure the fast recovery of disaster victims.

“Their response reaffirmed a tenet civilization must uphold when one nation faces an emergency or an existential threat — that no man is an island, indeed. All unfulfilled commitments made in the past for Yolanda rehabilitation are responsibilities we fully assume,” he said.

Ready for ‘Marce’

While the recovery and response efforts for Kristine and Leon victims are ongoing, the government is ready to minimize the impact of Typhoon Marce, Office of Civil Defense administrator Ariel Nepomuceno said in a Palace press briefing.

Nepomuceno said the prepositioning of relief goods and the preemptive and forced evacuation of affected families are vital in the government’s preparations for the possible impact of Marce.

“We’re still in the middle of recovery efforts for the other two typhoons, Kristine and Leon,” he said. “So, in terms of all the efforts, we have to consolidate all the figures though at the moment, we are focused on handling Marce at may parating pa (and we anticipate another tropical cyclone).”

He said the assets of the Armed Forces of the Philippines, Philippine Coast Guard and Philippine National Police have already been prepositioned.

Nepomuceno said 17,019 persons are already staying in the evacuation centers in Ilocos Region, Cagayan Valley and the Cordillera Administrative Region.