Good plans, long-term solutions needed to mitigate the effects of disasters – President Aquino

By FLOR JACKSON, PIA Biliran
January 15, 2011

TACLOBAN CITY  –  “We cannot go against nature, but we can mitigate the effects of the disasters by having good plans and long-term solutions,” thus said President Benigno S. Aquino III during a press briefing with the local media held at the pre-departure area of the Ormoc City airport on Friday, January 14, 2011 with no less than Presidential Spokesperson Edwin Lacierda as the moderator after his arrival from St. Bernard in Southern Leyte to see for himself the actual situation in the area after  it was hit by floods and landslides as a result of the continuous rains in the past two weeks.

President Aquino together with his entourage who was on the second leg of his trip from Legazpi in the province of Albay upon his arrival at the Ormoc Airport on Friday was welcomed by Governor Jericho Petilla in behalf of the people of the province of Leyte.

Also at the airport to welcome the President and his entourage composed of some cabinet secretaries were Ormoc City Mayor Eric Codilla, Vice-Mayor Nep Aparis, Sangguniang Panglungsod members whose attendance was complete and other officials of the Ormoc city government.

President Aquino and his entourage immediately flew to St. Bernard in Southern Leyte via presidential chopper.

According to reports, before landing in St. Bernard, the President and his party made an aerial survey on the damage caused by the flooding in the area.

Two of the seven cabinet secretaries who were with the President did not go with him but stayed behind in Ormoc until his return from St. Bernard.

The cabinet secretaries who opted to stay were Department of Public Works and Highways Secretary Rogelio Singzon and Department of the Interior and Local Government Secretary Jessie Robredo.

At the press briefing President Aquino informed that he always gets reports on updates of weather conditions and other reports in all areas across the country, hence, the reason for his trips to validate these reports.

When asked about the low-risk areas of the country, President Aquino said, he was surprised why the map that is being used is still in the scale of 1:250,000 when in fact the lower the scale, the more precise is the identification of the risk areas.

He said, a map using a scale of 1:10,000 is now being worked out so that identification of high risk areas becomes easy and precise.

He added that in region 8, preparation of maps using the scale of 1:10,000 has already been started but for Samar, it’s not yet through.

In his visit to St. Bernard, one of the areas in region 8 most affected by flooding, President Aquino said “since there were so many suggestions made by the mayor, the congressman and other experts, I asked all of them, what solutions do you want so that we can consolidated all of these plans, we will validate and we will look for the necessary funding.”

The President was also asked by one of the media personalities in Tacloban about the long term solution he has in mind to mitigate the effects of these disasters, and he said, “everything has to be validated first to determine what are needed.”

He informed that part of the long-term solutions to mitigate the effects of disaster like this, is to educate the citizenry.  He mentioned as an example when he said “if people hear about typhoons, they know and understand already and act immediately what to do, but if they hear Tail End of a Cold Front (TECF), what others think is, it’s going to be a cold weather, not warm and rainy days come,” so people need to be educated.

Another media practitioner based in Tacloban City mentioned about illegal cutting of trees as the cause of flooding and landslides not only in St. Bernard in Southern Leyte but also in other parts of region 8 and the whole country.

In reaction to this, President Aquino said “I am surprised why sawmills are still there when there are no regular supply of timber.  Why are they still operational, so we might order them closed.  There might be a moratorium on cutting any logs as much as possible and details will be worked out. There are agreements that have been entered to – that are still existing and still valid and we don’t want to sue each other in court,” so we have to look into this.

“There are at least six provinces in the country that have high prevalence of illegal logging, so the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR), the lead agency together with the security forces both the Philippine National Police (PNP) and the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) is tasked to put a stop to this,” he added.