DAVAO CITY (Mindanao Examiner / Dec. 6, 2012) – Communist rebel leaders on Thursday have appealed for aid for victims of the typhoon Bopha that left hundreds of people dead in the southern Philippines.
Rubi del Mundo, a spokesperson for the National Democratic Front in Southern Mindanao, also urged allied revolutionary organizations to raise funds, seek donations and contributions for more than 160,000 people affected the typhoon.
The typhoon left a trail of destruction in Davao and Compostela Valley provinces where hundreds had died from landslides and flash floods.
Del Mundo blamed large-scale mining activities for the deaths. “As the revolutionary forces help in the relief and rehabilitation, the people, including the families of the victims of the calamity should struggle to hold accountable those responsible for the loss of lives and property.”
“The grave losses suffered by the people highlights the need to stop environmental plunder by indiscriminate large-scale mining, expanding large-scale plantations, and logging operations that are being abetted by the US-Aquino regime’s pro-capitalist economic policies,” Del Mundo said in a statement sent to the Mindanao Examiner.
The rebels spokesperson said as the typhoon’s death toll continues to increase, the government has failed to provide relief operations in the towns of Boston, Cateel and Bagangga, the towns worst hit by the typhoon in Davao Oriental. And said search and rescue operations have not extended into far-flung villages of Monkayo, New Bataan and Compostela towns.
“The inaction and incompetence by the Philippine government in the face of this tragedy is foreshadowed by the pronouncements of the reactionary environment and disaster officials who have blamed affected residents for their complacency and failing to heed the state’s warning and earlier calls for preventive evacuation.”
“The reactionary government also point to rampant small-scale mining and logging in the affected areas–areas which were considered already disaster-prone in the state’s so-called geo-hazard map. It was an old script taken out the (typhoon) Sendong tragedy: denuded forests plus failure of the people to relocate aggravated the impact of a natural calamity. It was a ready, convenient answer by a government that has failed in putting into place sufficient preparations and responding to the needs of its people,” Del Mundo said.
Del Mundo said the failure of the Aquino government to immediately address the problems highlighted poor disaster-preparedness, especially in the two provinces large-scale mining and logging activities are unabated.
“Nowhere can we see the hundreds of millions of pesos of tax payers’ money out of Compostela Valley’s mining, agribusiness and Davao Oriental’s logging resources working for the victims of this calamity. Local capitalists and foreign large-scale mining salivate over the estimated 189 million metric tons of gold deposits mostly found in Mt. Diwata and nickel deposits of 490.7 million metric tons in Compostela Valley and Davao Oriental.”
“And yet, as tragedies strike the resource-laden but poor communities, all the government can do is to deliver piecemeal assistance. Despite the billions of pesos allocated by the US-Aquino regime in Armed Forces’ modernization (program), in the implementation of the fascist (anti-insurgency) Oplan Bayanihan, and in disaster-related technological upgrade, the high-tech gadgets have failed to save the lowly peasant families, the families of small-scale miners and the ordinary banana plantation workers,” Del Mundo said.
But President Aquino has ordered relief operations in the provinces and sent Interior Secretary Mar Roxas on Thursday to see how government can assist the typhoon victims.
Roxas said the President is making sure that needed services and assistance are delivered immediately to answer the needs of displaced families and victims whether injured or dead, according to state media.
The Department of Social Welfare and Development has distributed thousands of food packs to the victims of typhoon in Compostela Valley. It also released over P3 million in relief assistance to families affected by the typhoon. (Mindanao Examiner)
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