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Irate Pia threatens to cut PSC budget

11/21/2013

Senator Pia Cayetano

Updated Friday November 22, 2013 - 12:00am Philippine Star

MANILA, Philippines - The Philippine Sports Commission's budget for 2014 faces rough times at the Senate as the chamber deferred consideration of its share in the proposed general appropriations with Sen. Pia Cayetano even threatening “zero allocation" due to what she cited as “its inability to uphold the interest of Philippine sports."

Cayetano took the PSC to task for “failing to supervise National Sports Associations (NSAs) that have prevented some of the country's outstanding athletes from competing in the coming Southeast Asian Games" and moved to withhold the chamber's deliberations of the PSC's proposed P182.3 million budget for 2014. The motion was subsequently adopted by the plenary.

The lady solon-sports woman said she's considering a “zero budget" for the PSC and the possible filing of administrative charges against PSC officials for their alleged inaction in the cases of swimmer Denjylie Cordero and members of Philippine Dragon Boat Team, who she said should have gone to the Myanmar meet but couldn't do so because of “differences with their respective NSAs."

“These two incidents clearly tell us that PSC, under our current laws, is not doing its job. Yes, I can amend the law, and I will do that. I will strip PSC of so many of its powers. But for this budget, I am torn between asking the body to defer the budget while I think about a zero budget. In conscience, I have a difficulty recommending a zero budget because at the end of the day, it's the athletes who will suffer," Cayetano said in her interpellation of Sen. Teofisto Guingona III, who is sponsoring the PSC budget.

“I ask that this budget be deferred while I am making up my mind, and it will include the filing of cases against officials who are not doing their job. This is clearly neglect and abuse of authority: When we can look away and just hide behind the cloak by saying that these NSAs are separate entities. So that is my motion, Mr. President, that we defer the budget for now, as I hope the body, along with me, will try to decide if this agency deserves a budget," she added.

She said Cordero, who broke the 10-year-old Phl women's 50-meter breaststroke record in the last UAAP, is a silver or gold medal potential but is not in the roster because of “difference between her father and the head of the swimming association."

“I want to hear from PSC: How in the world did personal differences… become the basis for not including a swimmer, who has the potential of winning the gold, in the lineup?" asked Cayetano.

She said this is also true with the dragon boat rowers, winners of six golds and a silver in the world championships last year, but were dropped after a falling-out with their coach.

“Pang-world champion tayo pero hindi tayo pang-Southeast Asian Games, bakit? Because the coach of the dragon boat team decides that the whole team is unfit? Or has committed certain violations that are unacceptable so she disbanded the whole team?" she said.

The sad thing, Cayetano claimed, is that “PSC and POC (Philippine Olympic Committee) won't do anything about it."

The PSC had maintained that it has no power over the NSAs, which has sole discretion in endorsing athletes to the SEA Games.

But Cayetano rebuffed this explanation, citing Section 11 of Republic Act No. 6847 (The Philippine Sports Commission Act) which enumerates the PSC's powers over the NSAs.

“Para saan pa itong Section 11 on powers of the commission to exercise supervisory and visitorial powers of the NSA. What do we do with this provision if they will just tell us that they cannot do anything?" she said. “I mean, think about it: I can imagine if the NSA suspended just one member, two members, even the team captain, but to suspend the whole team? What did you [PSC] do to exercise your supervisory and visitorial powers? What did you do? Please tell me how that was exercised?"

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Philippine typhoon death toll jumps; U.S. helicopters boost aid effort

11/15/2013

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By Stuart Grudgings and Aubrey Belford (Reuters)

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TACLOBAN, Philippines (Reuters) - The death toll from one of the world's most powerful typhoons surged to about 4,000 on Friday, but the aid effort was still so patchy bodies lay uncollected as rescuers tried to evacuate stricken communities across the central Philippines.

After long delays, hundreds of international aid workers set up makeshift hospitals and trucked in supplies, while helicopters from a U.S. aircraft carrier ferried medicine and water to remote areas leveled by Typhoon Haiyan a week ago.

US Military assistance in Philippines The death toll from a powerful typhoon that swept the central Philippines nearly doubled overnight, reaching 4,000, as helicopters from a U.S. aircraft carrier and other naval ships began flying food, water and medical teams to ravaged regions. (Reuters)

"We are very, very worried about millions of children," U.N. Children's Fund spokesman Marixie Mercado told reporters in Geneva.

A U.N. official said in a guarded compliment many countries had come forward to help.

"The response from the international community has not been overwhelming compared to the magnitude of the disaster, but it has been very generous so far," Jens Laerke of the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs told the Geneva news briefing.

Captain Victoriano Sambale, a military doctor who since Saturday has treated patients in a room strewn with dirt and debris in Tacloban, which bore the brunt of the storm, said there had been a change in the pace in the response.

"I can see the international support coming here," he said.

"Day one we treated 600-plus patients. Day two we had 700-plus patients. Day three we lost our count."

President Benigno Aquino, caught off guard by the scale of the disaster, has been criticized for the slow pace of aid distribution and unclear estimates of casualties, especially in Tacloban, capital of hardest-hit Leyte province.

A notice board in Tacloban City Hall estimated the deaths at 4,000 on Friday, up from 2,000 a day before, in that town alone. Hours later, Tacloban mayor Alfred Romualdez apologized and said the toll was for the whole central Philippines.

The toll, marked up on a whiteboard, is compiled by officials who started burying bodies in a mass grave on Thursday.

Romualdez said some people may have been swept out to sea and their bodies lost after a tsunami-like wall of seawater slammed into coastal areas. One neighborhood with a population of between 10,000 and 12,000 was now deserted, he said.

The City Hall toll was the first public acknowledgement that the number of fatalities would likely far exceed an estimate given this week by Aquino, who said lives lost would be closer to 2,000 or 2,500.

Official confirmed deaths nationwide rose by more than 1,200 overnight to 3,621 on Friday. Adding to the confusion, the United Nations, citing government figures, put the latest overall death toll at 4,460, but a spokeswoman said it was now reviewing the figure.

"I hope it will not rise anymore. I hope that is the final number," Eduardo del Rosario, director of the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council, said of the latest official toll. "If it rises, it will probably be very slight."

On Tuesday, Aquino said estimates of 10,000 dead by local officials were overstated and caused by "emotional trauma". Elmer Soria, a regional police chief who gave that estimate to media, was removed from his post on Thursday.

National police spokesman Reuben Sindac said Soria had experienced an "acute stress reaction" and had been transferred to headquarters in Manila. But a senior police official told Reuters he believed Soria was re-assigned because of his unauthorized casualty estimate.

U.S. HELICOPTERS AID RELIEF EFFORT

But massive logistical problems remain. Injured survivors waited in long lines under searing sun for treatment. Local authorities reported shortages of body bags, gasoline and staff to collect the dead.

"Bodies are still lying on the roads. But now at least they're in sections with department of health body bags," Ian Norton, chief of a team of Australian aid workers, told Reuters.

Stunned survivors in Tacloban said the toll could be many thousands. "There are a lot of dead people on the street in our neighborhood, by the trash," said Aiza Umpacan, a 27-year-old resident of San Jose, one of the worst-hit neighborhoods.

"There are still a lot of streets that were not visited by the disaster relief operations. They are just going through the highways, not the inner streets," he said. "The smell is getting worse and we actually have neighbors who have been brought to hospital because they are getting sick."

The preliminary number of missing as of Friday, according to the Red Cross, rose to 25,000 from 22,000 a day earlier. That could include people who have since been located, it said.

The nuclear-powered USS George Washington aircraft carrier and accompanying ships arrived off eastern Samar province on Thursday evening, carrying 5,000 crew and more than 80 aircraft.

U.S. sailors have brought food and water ashore in Tacloban and the eastern Samar province town of Guiuan whose airport was a U.S. naval air base in World War Two. The carrier is moored near where U.S. General Douglas MacArthur's force landed on October 20, 1944, in one of the biggest Allied victories.

Acting U.S. Ambassador Brian Goldbeck, the chargé d'affaires at the U.S. Embassy in Manila, said the United States had moved 174,000 kg (383,000 lb) of emergency supplies into affected areas and evacuated nearly 3,000 people.

A Norwegian merchant navy training vessel arrived at Tacloban on Friday with goods from the U.N. World Food Programme, including 40 metric tons of rice, medical equipment and 6,200 body bags.

THOUSANDS TRY TO EVACUATE

Boxes of aid were being unloaded at Tacloban's badly damaged airport, where more than a thousand people queued for hours hoping to evacuate.

Hundreds of people, part of nearly a million who have been displaced by the storm, lined up for food and drink at an evacuee processing center at Mactan Air Base in Cebu, the country's second-biggest city.

Some 522 evacuees passed through the center on Thursday, with hundreds more arriving on Friday, a government coordinator, Erlinda Parame, said.

In one room, children huddled on a mud-streaked floor watching cartoons on a small television.

Nearby, Gerardo Alvarez, 53, sat strapped to a metal wheelchair, straining against the bandages that restrained him.

"The water is coming! I'm going to die!" he shouted.

The traumatized man had escaped the storm surge from a second-storey window of his Tacloban home while his sister and mother, who were praying downstairs, drowned.

(Additional reporting by Rosemarie Francisco and Eric dela Cruz and Manuel Mogato in Manila, Michelle Nichols at the United Nations and Stephanie Nebehay in Geneva. Writing by Jason Szep. Editing by Dean Yates and Nick Macfie)

Four Ospreys from US Navy Ship (USNS) Charles Drew prepare to taxi on the tarmac of Tacloban airport in the aftermath of super typhoon Haiyan on November 14, 2013.

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Hong Kong adds $5.16 million in funds for Philippines aid

11/15/2013

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Updated: Fri, 15 Nov 2013 13:01:53 GMT | By Agence France-Presse

Hong Kong said Friday it will contribute $5.16 million to a fund that can be used to help the typhoon-stricken Philippines, after drawing fire for sticking to a deadline on sanctions against Manila over a 2010 hostage crisis.

The city's legislative body voted for the injection of HK$40 million ($5.16 million) into an existing disaster relief fund, boosting its total amount to HK$49 million, which aid groups can then apply for, the government said in a statement late Friday.

"We really want to provide the needed aid to victims affected very significantly by this major typhoon," the territory's chief secretary Carrie Lam said earlier this week.

Hong Kong is insisting that the Philippines offer a formal apology over the 2010 hijacking of a tour bus in Manila by a former police officer which left eight Hong Kongers dead and seven injured.

Its refusal to drop the threat despite the devastating impact of typhoon Haiyan, which has killed thousands and devastated entire coastal communities, has drawn strong criticism from some Hong Kongers and the city's Filipino migrant workers.

"The situation is still the same," a government spokeswoman told AFP on Friday.

Aid for the Philippines has been pouring in from around the world following the disaster, and Hong Kong's stance drew anger from citizens who expressed themselves on bulletin boards and social media.

"This is totally disgusting behaviour... Hong Kong is losing its way," says one person posting on the South China Morning post's website.

"Shame, shame, shame, Hong Kong," said another user.

Eman Villanueva, vice chairman of the Filipino Migrant Workers' Union, told AFP the government's position on the sanctions deadline was "insensitive" and that the deadline should be pushed back.

"Any sanctions imposed on the Philippines will directly affect the people and not the government," he said.

Hong Kong's leader Leung Chun-ying said last week that he will take "necessary actions to apply sanctions" if he does not see concrete steps taken to resolve the issue within a month.

The city's unpopular government -- under pressure from families of the victims -- has mooted a cancellation of its visa-free arrangement for visitors from the Philippines as well as possible trade sanctions.

Philippine President Benigno Aquino has refused to apologise on behalf of the country for the Manila hostage situation, insisting the deaths were primarily caused by the actions of the hostage taker.

The Hong Kong Red Cross said Friday it has also raised HK$7.7 million dollars from the public for the Philippines relief effort.

The United Nations has appealed for $301 million in aid, with the US and Britain among leading donors and China on Thursday stepping up its initially modest response to dispatch rescue materials worth $1.6 million.

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Philippines readies for mass burials as survivors beg

11/13/2013

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Updated: Thu, 14 Nov 2013 05:25:49 GMT | By Agence France-Presse

Scores of decaying bodies lay in bags outside Tacloban's ruined city hall on Thursday, ready for trucking by overwhelmed Philippine authorities to mass graves, as destitute typhoon survivors pleaded for help of any kind.

Philippine soldiers and volunteers load an army truck with bags of rice to be distributed to typhoon survivors, at Tacloban airport, on November 14, 2013

Almost 200 corpses -- many of them unidentified -- were lined up side by side outside the government building almost a week after one of the most powerful typhoons ever to make landfall smashed through the central Philippines, killing thousands.

"There are still so many cadavers in so many areas. It's scary," Tacloban mayor Alfred Romualdez said, adding that retrieval teams were struggling to cope.

"There would be a request from one community to collect five or 10 bodies and when we get there, there are 40," Romualdez told AFP, claiming that aid agencies' response to the increasingly desperate crisis had been too slow.

Six days after Super Typhoon Haiyan unleashed its fury, President Barack Obama urged Americans to dig deep in donations to their former Asian colony. US officials said relief channels were slowly opening up as an aircraft carrier leads a small armada of warships steaming towards the Philippines.

But on the ground, aid is still not getting through to the hungry and thirsty battling to survive the aftermath.

Sick or injured people lie helplessly among the ruins of buildings, while those with the energy try to leave a place that resembles hell.

"The situation is dismal," conceded UN humanitarian aid chief Valerie Amos, who visited Tacloban on Wednesday.

"Those who have been able to leave have done so. Many more are trying. People are extremely desperate for help," she told reporters in Manila.

"We need to get assistance to them now. They are already saying it has taken too long to arrive. Ensuring a faster delivery is our... immediate priority."

'An atmosphere of fear and depression'

Efren Nagrama, area manager at the civil aviation authority, said conditions were "very dire now" as he surveyed the filthy stream of humanity at Tacloban's battered airport clamouring to get a flight out.

"You see hundreds coming to the compound every day. People who have walked for days without eating, only to arrive here and be made to wait for hours or days under the elements," he said.

"People are pushed to the tipping point -- they see relief planes but cannot get to the food nor get a ride out. There is chaos."

Mayor Romualdez said the people of Tacloban needed an "overwhelming response" from aid organisations and the government.

"We need more manpower and more equipment," Romualdez pleaded.

"I cannot use a truck to collect cadavers in the morning and then use it to distribute relief goods in the afternoon," he added.

"Let's get the bodies out of the streets. They are creating an atmosphere of fear and depression."

Romualdez said the plan was to start mass burials in the nearby village of Basper Thursday, a day after attempts to lay to rest some of Haiyan's victims were abandoned when gunshots halted a convoy travelling towards a communal grave.

City officials estimate that they have collected 2,000 bodies but insist many more need to be retrieved. The UN fears that 10,000 people may have died in Tacloban city alone, but President Benigno Aquino has described that figure as "too much".

Romualdez said the bodies lying on the grass outside city hall were waiting for the military to transport them to two burial sites -- one for the identified and one for those whose names are not known.

While the retrieval operation gets going, there are growing fears for the health of those who survived.

The World Health Organization has said there were significant injuries that need to be dealt with -- open wounds that can easily become infected in the sweltering tropical heat.

Experts warn that a reliable supply of clean drinking water is absolutely vital if survivors are not to fall victim to diarrhoea, which can lead to dehydration and death, especially in small children.

Steaming to the rescue

Pledges of help continued to come in from abroad, with Obama on Wednesday urging Americans that "even small contributions can make a big difference and help save lives".

Along with ships and planes sent by an array of countries including Australia, Britain and Japan, the United States has dispatched an advance force of Marines equipped with cargo planes and versatile Osprey aircraft.

The USS George Washington carrier and other Navy ships are expected in the Philippines by Friday and Washington has committed $20 million, roughly half for food and the rest to prevent disease outbreaks.

One US official said relief workers were now able to get more aid out of Tacloban airport, and that the opening of a land route had given a significant boost by connecting to a sea port.

The initial effort was "a lot like trying to squeeze an orange through a straw", the official told reporters on a conference call. "We are now getting more straws, if you will, and bigger straws."

However, hundreds of Philippine soldiers and police continue to patrol Tacloban's streets and man checkpoints to try to prevent pillaging after outbreaks of lawlessness.

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Snapshot of Philippine typhoon crisis

11/12/2013

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Updated: Wed, 13 Nov 2013 10:21:22 GMT | By Agence France-Presse

Here is an updated snapshot of the desperate situation on the worst-hit islands of the Philippines after Super Typhoon Haiyan -- one of the strongest storms ever recorded -- left thousands dead, with many more missing or homeless.

LEYTE ISLAND

Five days after Haiyan ripped apart entire coastal communities, the situation in provincial capital Tacloban is dire with essential supplies running low and thousands scrambling to flee on rare flights out of the city's airport.

Some 1.7 million people live on the central island where anger at the slow pace of aid turned deadly when eight people were crushed as a huge crowd ransacked a rice warehouse in Alangalang town, 17 kilometres (10 miles) from Tacloban.

Punishing winds and waves up to five metres (16 feet) high demolished homes in Friday's category five storm and bodies were still lying on the streets Wednesday, the stench of rotting bodies hanging thick in the air.

The United Nations estimates that about 10,000 of the city's 220,000 people may have been killed. A regional police chief earlier speculated that 10,000 might have perished in the whole province.

SAMAR ISLAND

Officials insist aid is starting to get through to the fishing town of Guiuan, the first place to experience the full brunt of Haiyan, where no word from its 47,000-populated community was heard for two days.

The government said it has been able to reopen an airstrip and is using it as a staging area to the rest of the island.

Aerial photos of Samar, where Haiyan made landfall packing winds of 315 kilometres (195 miles) an hour, show whole stretches of coast flattened.

The death toll so far is 362, according to the civil defence office, although that number was almost certain to rise.

CEBU ISLAND

At least 58 people died when the typhoon struck the northern edge of popular tourist hotspot Cebu.

Cebu City -- considered the country's second most important trading centre -- was not badly affected but there are fears for other parts of the island, which has a population of around 866,000.

MALAPASCUA ISLAND

The typhoon smashed houses, resorts and restaurants on the small island of about 3,000 people which is popular among divers. One woman recalled "the winds were so strong. The roofs went flying, the boats were thrown into the trees".

Authorities say they still do not know if there were any casualties.

PANAY ISLAND

At least 235 people -- mainly in coastal communities -- are known to have died on Panay, home to more than 3.9 million people, many of whom work in the fishing industry.

BORACAY ISLAND

The popular resort island of Boracay, near Panay, suffered extensive damage with debris from shattered beachfront stalls scattered all over its powdery-white sands. No deaths have been confirmed as yet.

PALAWAN ISLAND

Much of Palawan, a largely unspoilt wilderness, escaped the worst of Haiyan but the island's northern edge was hit, including Coron town, a high-end tourist spot. The town's mayor Clara Reyes said nine people had been killed and that the town would soon run out of food.

The storm destroyed 90 percent of Coron, knocking out power, contaminating the water supply and damaging the airport, leaving about 400 tourists stranded for several days.

NEGROS ISLAND

The sugar-growing centre of the Philippines prepared extensively for the storm, evacuating at least 89,000 people from their homes in case of flooding. The island, home to four million people, escaped relatively unscathed and only one death is so far reported.

REMOTE ISLANDS

Aid agencies fear the true extent of the devastation will only be discovered when word is heard from dozens of smaller islands in the Visayas group.

"There are a lot of them and I think it will be days, if not weeks, before we have a clear picture," a Red Cross spokesman said.

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Slashed and stabbed as fear rules typhoon-ravaged Philippine city

11/12/2013

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Updated: Wed, 13 Nov 2013 12:41:08 GMT | By Agence France-Presse

As anarchy spread across a Philippine city demolished by one of the world's strongest typhoons, a 13-year-old boy holding a toy car and walking alone at night was slashed across the neck and stabbed in the stomach.

Jonathan Salayco said he was on the debris-strewn streets of disaster-hit Tacloban when two men he did not know pounced late Tuesday, attacking him with a knife before disappearing without a trace.

"He was still holding his toy car," said Mina Joset, a Red Cross nurse at Tacloban hospital where Salayco was brought in on Wednesday morning.

Residents of Leyte's ruined provincial capital -- where bodies still line roads -- are living in fear after looters ran wild in the wake of Super Typhoon Haiyan, one of the strongest storms ever recorded, on Friday.

The category five storm killed hundreds or possibly thousands in Tacloban, flattening buildings and cutting off power, water, electricity and communications. Authorities there are struggling to deliver much-needed food and medical supplies to an increasingly desperate population.

Salayco had a slit throat and stab wound in his stomach, according to Joset, but due to a lack of medical supplies at the overwhelmed hospital doctors could only temporarily dress his wounds.

"For a boy like him, this is a serious injury," the nurse said.

Fortunately for Salayco, officials were able to get him on a military helicopter which took him to a hospital on another island for further treatment.

Famished and destitute survivors desperately searched for food following the storm, some resorting to looting. Others took advantage of the post-disaster chaos to steal not only food and water but also consumer items from televisions to toys.

To restore law and order, the government has sent almost 2,000 police, soldiers and special forces to patrol and man checkpoints on Leyte island. A night-time curfew is also in force.

On Wednesday gunshots forced the postponement of a mass burial of typhoon victims, the mayor of Tacloban told AFP.

Local doctor Corazon Rubio survived last week's typhoon that killed 10 of her neighbours but she said it the aftermath that left her terrified.

"What is frightening is the looting," Rubio told AFP.

"They would get TV sets from the houses. Of what use are they? We don't even have electricity," she asked despairingly.

Terrified shop owners have fled, fearing that their families would be targeted.

"The businesses of Tacloban are all leaving... because of safety issues," Alfred Li, head of the local chamber of commerce, said.

He told how organised gangs had broken into warehouses, taking the most expensive items, while individual looters help themselves to the rest.

Presidential spokesman Ramon Carandang has sought to play down security fears.

"There have been so many reports of looting and rape which have turned out not to be correct," he told ABS-CBN television.

Manila police officer Julian Bagawayan said 150 members of his riot police squad were in Tacloban, conducting curfew foot patrols which started on Monday night.

"We are here to stop people looting properties and breaking into homes," he said.

"If we see people loitering after dark, we will advise them to go indoors. If they refuse, there are laws applicable to them."

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Irate Pia threatens to cut PSC budget

Philippine typhoon death toll jumps; U.S. helicopters boost aid effort

Hong Kong adds $5.16 million in funds for Philippines aid

Philippines readies for mass burials as survivors beg

Snapshot of Philippine typhoon crisis

Slashed and stabbed as fear rules typhoon-ravaged Philippine city

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We Are The Network

Irate Pia threatens to cut PSC budget

Philippine typhoon death toll jumps; U.S. helicopters boost aid effort

Hong Kong adds $5.16 million in funds for Philippines aid

Philippines readies for mass burials as survivors beg

Snapshot of Philippine typhoon crisis

Slashed and stabbed as fear rules typhoon-ravaged Philippine city

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CategoriesCommission on Higher Education (CHED)

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Commission on Higher Education (CHED)