Rights and Wrongs

A Super Typhoon's Deadly Path       

Written by Our Correspondent    

Friday, 11 January 2013 

Asia Sentinel
 

The aftermath of Tropical Storm Bopha leaves a Mindanao tragedy

On Nov. 23, a tropical depression began to form some 450 km south-southwest of the island of Pohnpei, one of

the four federated states of Micronesia.

Originating closer to the equator than most tropical storms, it would make its devastating way across the Central

Pacific towards the island of Mindanao in the Philippines.

Pablo was just one of 35 tropical depressions to hit the 7,000-island archipelago nation in 2012.

Of those depressions, 25 matured into total storms.

Fourteen grew into typhoons and five unofficially became super typhoons, classified as storms with sustained

winds greater than 67 meters per second (0.067 km) or 150 miles per hour (240 km/h) by the Joint Typhoon Warning Center in Hawaii.

As example of just how much bad weather is in store as climate change intensifies, the first tropical storm of the

year formed in the Pacific on Jan. 1, 2012.

The last storm dissipated on Dec. 28, according to the Joint Typhoon Warning Center.

On Nov. 26, the Joint Typhoon Warning Center, a joint US Navy - Air Force task force located in Pearl Harbor,

Hawaii, upgraded the storm to Tropical Storm Bopha.

Eventually, on Nov. 30, Bopha would be upgraded again, to a severe tropical storm and then, a few hours later, to a typhoon. t that point, it was located about 1,000 km east-southeast of the Micronesian island of Palau.

Bopha strengthened again on Dec. 2, eventually making landfall in the Philippines as a category 5 super

typhoon, said to be the strongest storm ever recorded to have hit Mindanao.

With winds gusting to 220 km per hour, it is believed to have been twice as devastating as Hurricane Sandy,

which smashed into the eastern seaboard of the United States. (Typhoons are called hurricanes in the west)

Bopha, known as Pablo in the Philippines, would inundate entire villages and hamlets, flatten such a vast

portion of Mindanao's US$500 million annual banana crop that it would raise global banana prices. It destroyed

most of the Philippine tuna fleet and killed an estimated 1,900 people.

It wasn't that the Philippines didn't see Pablo coming.

Classes were suspended, people were moved into school buildings, town halls and health centers - many of

which were swept away as easily as the attap huts they lived in.

Farm water catchment basins atop mountains gave way, the honeycomb of unregulated and illegal gold mines

with their primitive pollution catchment dams melted. Small-scale mining pockmarked many slopes, making

them unstable and prone to landslides and flash floods.

Hundreds of tuna fishermen at sea have never been heard from since.

Pablo didn't just sweep over Mindanao.

It wheeled and came over the northern portion of the island three times.

It was so devastating that the Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration,

known as Pagasa, announced that the name Pablo would no longer be used for tropical cyclones.

More than a month after Pablo, an astonishing 6.5 million people have been affected and more than 200,000

homes damaged or destroyed, according to the Philippines' National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council.

"It will take years for the agriculture industry here to recover, and many rely on, and actually live off, the

plantations," Arturo Uy, the governor of Compostela Valley Province, which took the brunt of the storm, told the

press.

"Many are left without sources of income."

 
"We continue to need urgent assistance from the government, and international donors.

This is increasingly becoming a humanitarian crisis," the governor said. Unfortunately, historically the Philippine

government has been woefully unprepared to handle storm devastation despite the number of typhoons -

growing as climate change warms the water in which they originate - that regularly sweep the country.

The government failed to provide meaningful relief to the tens of thousands of people drenched by Typhoon

Ondoy, which hit in 2009, for weeks after the storm had gone. Northern Mindanao, some 800 km. south of Manila,

is a long way from the relief agencies.

According to a report by IRIN, a service of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs,

the Compostela Valley has been the center of the country's banana export industry since the 1960s.

Some 80 percent of residents rely on subsistence farming, producing such things as coconuts, vegetables,

coffee and cocoa in addition to bananas.

About two thirds of exported bananas are grown there, and about 150,000 people normally depend on the fruit for their primary source of income.

The Philippines is the world's third largest banana exporting country.

The Agriculture Department has said over 200,000 banana farm hands and their families live on more than 42,000

hectares of plantations in Mindanao owned by large corporations, where they work for US$250 a month as

sharecroppers - a relatively good wage in this impoverished region, according to the IRIN report.

Many have migrated from other parts of Mindanao to escape a decades-old Muslim and communist insurgency.

Fortunato Yubi, who lost two relatives to a deadly Bopha-induced mudslide that washed out most of New

Bataan town in Compostela Valley, told IRIN his family's small farm had been totally destroyed, and that they

were subsisting on handouts while living in a shelter made of tarpaulin and wooden debris.

"There is no other job here for us.

We've lost everything and we don't know where to go and how to start anew," the 60-year-old said.

"This storm stole everything from us."

Cedric Daep, a civil defense official from eastern Bicol Region sent to the devastated area to help local officials

with camp management, told the UN agency the authorities must provide immediate sources of income.

"Cash-for-work-and-food programs must be increased to give the villagers, especially heads of families, some

sense of purpose and productivity, apart from the usual needs such as food, water and shelter," he said.

Debris clearing remains a major concern, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA)

reported on Jan. 8, with a number of clean-up and cash-for-work efforts already in place.

Food insecurity

Meanwhile, the London-based medical charity, Merlin warned of increased food insecurity following extensive

damage to farms and infrastructure, as food stocks begin to dwindle and many residents lack jobs.

"With homes and livelihoods destroyed, nearly 1 million people are in need of food assistance," Merlin's head for

Asia, Gabor Beszterczey, said in statement.

"The government believes that in the worst affected areas food aid will be needed at least until the end of

March," he added, warning that the situation could deteriorate in the coming weeks, with diseases likely.

On Dec. 10, the UN and humanitarian partners launched the Typhoon Bopha Action Plan (BAP), appealing for

US$65 million to provide emergency assistance and to help with recovery for nearly 500,000 typhoon-affected people over three to six months.

According to the UN Financial Tracking Service, as of Jan. 8, BAP is 34 percent funded with a total of US$22

million in pledges, commitments and contributions.

A revised BAP will be launched in Manila towards the end of January, IRIN reported.

Heavy downpour dislocates hundreds of Mindanao families
 

Published on 09 January 2013

Written by RITCHIE A. HORARIO REPORTER  0 2 1 9

OVER 600 families in the two regions in Mindanao were affected by floods spawned by heavy rains brought by

the low-pressure area, according to the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council.

The council said on Tuesday said that 636 families, or 3,180 persons were affected by floodings in seven

barangays, one city, two municipalities and three provinces in Regions XI (Davao region) and XII (Soccsksargen).

Of these 62 families or 310 persons were currently stayed inside the three evacuation centers.

The Disaster agency also reported that on Monday the low pressure brought heavy rains that caused the

waterways of Barangay Pangyan, Glan, Sarangani province to overflow and flood the community.

The flooding displaced 18 families who were brought to safer places.

On Sunday, a flooding incident occurred in the provinces of Davao del Norte and Compostela Valley brought

about by continuous rains caused by the low pressure.

As a result, 30 families from Barangay New Visayas, Montevista, Compostella Valley, were evacuated to a chapel

and another 30 families from Barangay Banagbanag, Montevista, Compostela Valley took shelter at Lingap relocation ssite.

Meanwhile, the dirt road linking Barangay Tibagon, Sitio Diat and Barangay Napnapan in Pantukan was damaged

rendering it impassable.

In Birth Control Bill, a Major Aquino Triumph

Written by Our Correspondent

Monday, 17 December 2012

The church says keep 'em coming Passage is only the start. Now the legislation must be implemented The passage last night by the Philippine legislature of a long-stalled birth control bill represents arguably President Benigno S.Aquino's biggest triumph in his two and a half year reign at the head of the government in Manila. The subject of a bitter, no-holds-barred rear-guard action on the part of the Catholic Church through the Philippine Conference of Bishops, the reproductive health measure, as it is called, has been 14 years in the making. The House of Representatives passed the bill on a healthy 133-79 margin, the Senate by a 13-8 vote. The law requires the government to provide contraceptives, information on modern family planning methods at public health centers and mandates a comprehensive reproductive health curriculum in schools. To say it is badly needed is an understatement. According to the United Nations Population Fund, half of the 3.4 million pregnancies that occur in the Philippines every year are unintended while a third are aborted, "often in clandestine, unsafe, and unsanitary procedures by nonprofessionals," according to Human Rights Watch, despite the fact that abortion is illegal. When Aquino made the measure a priority, Bishop Nereo Odchimar, the head of the Catholic Bishops' Conference, said Aquino, a Catholic, could face excommunication. Despite that, Aquino said he wouldn't change his position. After vacillating earlier during his presidential term, on Dec. 13, increasingly sure of his presidential clout, Aquino put it on the fast track for passage after a long series of parliamentary maneuvers. Accordingly, Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile said the chamber would soon pass its version of the bill over his own objections. "My reading is that the pro-RH has the numbers," Enrile said in an interview before the vote over local television."It looks like [it's going to be approved]. It might be very close." In the end, it wasn't The two houses must now reconcile their versions before the bill becomes law. The bill must be approved by this week before the Congress recesses for the holiday season. The early betting on Aquino when he was elected to the nation's highest office in July 2010 was that he wouldn't make too many waves, and the reproductive health bill was one of the biggest wavemakers of all. A largely lackluster lawmaker for 12 years in the house of Representatives and the Senate, he was regarded as his mother's son-- Corazon Aquino, who was elected president in the wake of her husband's assassination. Cory was regarded as honest but largely ineffective as president, enduring a long series of attempted coups. However, the president has pushed through a respectable series of measures, decisions and orders, including another historic achievement, the signing of a peace agreement with the Islamic Moro Islamic Liberation Front in October after 40 years of bloodshed that have taken an estimated 150,000 lives and stunted the economic growth of the region. The president is also basking in a spectacular performance approval rating of +78 percent according to Pulse Asia, a respected polling firm, stemming partly from a strong economy built on healthy inward remittances from the estimated 9 million Filipinos working overseas, plus the country's offshore business processing operations, which recently surpassed India?s to become the world?s biggest such operations. The economy grew by 7.1 percent in the third quarter, according to the National Statistical Coordination Board. It was the fastest economic expansion in Asean, with consumer spending healthy and inflation well in check. While corruption remains a serious issue, the administration?s actions in bringing transparency to the government's bid process in particular have endeared the country to the international investing community. However, while the president has favorable economic winds at his back and a strong approval rating on corruption, having ousted Supreme Court Chief Justice Renato Corona and Ombudsman Merceditas Gutierrez, both allies of former president Gloria Aquino, whom he has sought to jail, he has also been helped by the growing impression of a Catholic Church that is not only out of step with its parishioners but outright corrupt. While 81 percent of the people identify themselves as Catholic, according to the International Religious Freedom Report 2004 by the U S State Department's Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor, half of those who marry do so outside of their faith in civil ceremonies, or don't wed at all, which fits with statistics that show 20 percent of the country?s births are out of wedlock. A sizeable number of priests themselves are believed to be married, in violation of their vows of chastity. The Filipino church has faced other challenges to its image. The bishops were hit by a major scandal two years ago in the so-called 'Pajaros for Priests' episode in which members of the church hierarchy received SUVs from disgraced former President Arroyo and paid her back by supporting congressmen who thwarted impeachment bids against her. Also, earlier this year, the Rev. Cristobal Garcia, one of the most prominent faces of the church in Cebu, was exposed as having been expelled by the Dominican order in Los Angeles after a nun told police an altar boy had been found in his bed in the rectory. Having fled back to the Philippines, Garcia has since been named a monsignor at the Society of the Angel of Peace in a village outside Cebu, where he oversees a chapel, a children's Sunday school program and a squad of altar boys. The fact is that contraceptive devices are used in the Philippines, but only by about 23 percent of the people, and mostly by the more prosperous classes. Poorer families mostly still have several children, giving the Philippines the highest fertility rate in Asia east of Afghanistan-- an average of 3.1 births per woman of fertile age. High population growth -- 35 percent of the population is under 15-- is often cited as the reason why per capita income growth in the Philippine has until recently lagged far behind that of neighboring countries such as Thailand and Indonesia. The question is what roadblocks will be put in the way of the legislation once passed. Reproductive health programs must be designed and implemented in the nation's schools and government health facilities have to be provided with information for women on birth control, a big job in a nation whose population is veering out of control at 96 million and growing. Enrile said the constitutionality could be questioned for violation of the protection of human life. The vast number of Catholic judges in the country probably guarantee such a constitutional challenge although the makeup of the high court, which more and more is in Aquino?s hands with Corona's ouster and the appointment by Associate Justice Lourdes Sereno. The campaign to put contraceptives in the hands of those who need them most is just beginning

Typhoon death toll tops 900
 

Published on 13 December 2012 

Written by AFP  1 0 8 12

THE death toll from the strongest typhoon to hit the Philippines this year has climbed above 900, with hundreds

still missing, the government said on Thursday.

Typhoon Bopha (local name: Pablo) killed 902 people mostly on the southern island of Mindanao, where floods

and landslides caused major damage in nearly 2,000 villages on December 4, the civil defense office said.

A total of 615 people remain missing, it said, a big reduction from the previous tally after rescuers found 296 tuna

fishermen who had put to sea before Bopha made landfall.

The government agency did not give further details.

The typhoon, the deadliest natural disaster to hit the Philippines this year, destroyed 149,000 houses, it said.

About 80,000 people remain in government shelters, where they face months in difficult, crowded conditions as

relief officials look for safe areas to build more permanent shelters.

Fifteen "stress debriefers" are now at work in the 63 shelters still in operation to help survivors come to terms with the loss of relatives, homes and possessions.

The United Nations launched a $65 million global aid appeal for typhoon victims on Monday, saying more than five

million people faced difficult conditions as they seek to rebuild their lives.

The death toll from Bopha could top the 1,200 people who died last year when Tropical Storm Washi (local name:

Sendong) hit Mindanao's north coast.

100,000 electric tricycles rolls out

Tuesday, 11 December 2012 15:51 |  |  | 

MANILA (AFP) - The Philippines is to roll out 100,000 electric tricycles in an effort to replace the petrol-powered

ones that currently ply its cities, one of the project's financiers said Tuesday.

The "e-trikes" would provide an alternative to the gas-guzzling, smoke-belching motorised tricycles that now ferry

Manila residents through narrow streets not served by buses, the Asian Development Bank (ADB) said.

ADB energy specialist Sohail Hasnie said the lender hoped the e-trikes would eventually replace some of the

estimated 3.5 million gas-powered motorcycles and tricycles already in use in the country.

"It will not stop at e-trike. It will expand horizontally to other transports like buses... and once that happens, nationwide, the country's consumption of oil will come down," he said in a video message.

The $500 million project received the green-light Tuesday but a launch date for the vehicles has not yet been set.

The e-trikes, powered by an electric motor with rechargeable lithium-ion batteries, cost only $1.20 for a daily

charge compared to the $6-8 in fuel a normal tricycle burns every day, the ADB said

There has been generally favourable reaction to a pilot project of 20 e-trikes that have been in service in one

Manila district since last year, the bank said.

The ADB is lending the Philippines $300 million to acquire the vehicles.

The project will also get an $105 million in a soft loan and grant from the United Nations' Clean Technology Fund, which is administered by the ADB, the bank said.

The Philippine government will provide $99 million.

The loans will also put up five solar charging stations so the e-trikes can be powered up without drawing on the electrical grid, the ADB said.

Other countries have also expressed interest in the e-trikes, said Hasnie.

The Philippines hopes to eventually become a centre for manufacturing these vehicles, he added.