The youth group Anakbayan also expressed frustration and extreme disappointment over the government’s snail-paced relief efforts, saying Aquino seems to be more concerned with saving face than saving lives.
“We are disappointed and outraged by the fact that President Aquino seems more concerned with downplaying the number of dead and politicking. What is important now is that we ensure that no more Yolanda victims succumb to hunger, thirst, exposure, and disease. We call on the government to act swiftly and immediately deliver relief goods to our kababayans,” Vencer Crisostomo, national chairperson of Anakbayan, said.
Media reports said as many as 10,000 people may have died and missing from the typhoon, but Aquino, citing government records claimed the death toll would be around 2,500.
“There is no excuse for what is happening right now. Now is not the time for inaction, opportunism, corruption, dirty politics and victim-blaming. The national government is the one with the resources and manpower to address the needs of typhoon victims. The natural disaster is compounded by a man-made disaster – the incompetent and anti-people Aquino administration,” Crisostomo said.
Anakbayan has held mass candle-lightings, prayer vigils, and other assemblies across the country to urge the public to continue various efforts to provide relief to victims of typhoon Haiyan, particularly in Tacloban City, one of the worst hit areas in the central region.
Aquino was also interviewed by CNN’s Christiane Amanpour where he enumerated the government’s relief efforts in areas devastated by the typhoon.
“When asked about his government’s reaction to the crisis, President Aquino told Amanpour he feels the immediate response has been reassuring to the vast majority of people but that two or three local governments were simply overwhelmed by the severity of the typhoon that hit the islands. For example, in Tacloban, only 20 of 290 police were available when disaster struck; many were tending to their own families, he said.”
“There was emotional trauma involved with that particular estimate quoting both the police official and local government,” he said, adding that “they did not have a basis for it. He did however acknowledge that the number might still get higher,” the CNN report said.
CNN anchor Anderson Cooper, who was in Tacloban covering the disaster, described the situation in the area as “miserable and desperate.”
Below is some part of his report on Jake Tapper’s program “The Lead”.
“It’s a miserable situation here and it does not seems to be getting better day by day and we are now on the 5th day since the storm hit here Tacloban. Just, we are here at the airport now, what’s left on the airport there are hundreds of people here sitting all night just, they have nowhere else to go and three blocks from that direction you’ll find people sleeping in makeshift huts basically you’re sleeping out in the exposed rains close to bodies of their loved ones which nobody has picked up because there’s nobody here to pick them up.”
“You will expect perhaps to see maybe a feeding center that have been set up about five days after the storm, we have not seen that certainly not in this area. Some food are being brought to people here at the airport, some water being distributed but it is very, very difficult condition for people here on the ground. It’s not clear how much longer it can continue like this, something has gotta give, there is hope that the airport will at some point will be opened by the US marines to operate on a 24 hour basis, that has not happened yet. There’s a lot of talk about that yesterday that has not occurred and we have been here all night and no flights were coming in once night came. It is a very desperate situation among the most desperate I have seen in covering disasters over the last couple of years.”(Mindanao Examiner. With reports from CNN and PNA)
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