Don’t squander humanitarian aid
When Typhoon “Tino” and Supertyphoon “Uwan” tore through Luzon and the Visayas recently and left a heartbreaking trail of death and destruction, foreign allies immediately came together to extend much needed humanitarian aid and support to help the devastated communities quickly get back on their feet.
Based on the latest count of the Office of Civil Defense, the death toll due to Tino and Uwan has risen to 269 and 28, respectively, with Cebu bearing the brunt of Tino with 150 fatalities, followed by Negros Occidental and Negros Oriental.
On top of this, the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council reported P490.1 million in damage to infrastructure and P484.8 million to agriculture due to Tino, while Uwan that hit the agricultural centers in Luzon caused P2.2 billion in damage to infrastructure and P1.9 billion in damage to agriculture.
The impact has been so severe that President Marcos was prompted to declare a state of national calamity, to allow government agencies to immediately draw from emergency funds and hasten the purchase of essential goods and services for the victims across Luzon and Visayas.
Shoulder to shoulder
Given the magnitude of the disaster, the assistance from foreign partners is a much welcome addition to the country’s limited resources.
The European Union leads the list of donors, extending over P85 million in aid to directly support communities in Cebu that were affected by typhoons and a prior earthquake. The assistance included sleeping kits, basic household items, and cash grants to meet the communities’ basic needs, as well as health care and water and sanitation activities.
Canada and Australia, meanwhile, pitched in a combined P166.3 million in humanitarian efforts to bolster Philippine response to the devastation.
“Canada stands shoulder to shoulder with the Philippines as friends and as family, as home to more than one million Filipino-Canadians,” said Canadian Secretary of State for International Development Randeep Sarai who recently visited the Philippines.
Australia, for its part, expressed willingness to provide P115.9 million for in-country shelter, water sanitation and hygiene, health services, and food assistance in the hard-hit areas.
Diplomatic differences
“Australia always stands ready to support the Philippines,” said Australian Ambassador to the Philippines Marc Innes-Brown.
The United States was among the first to pledge support, with P58 million allocated in emergency aid for relief operations in the communities hardest hit by Tino, primarily in Cebu.
“The United States and the Philippines are not only ironclad allies—we are friends and partners bound by a shared history,” said the US government. Japan also expressed its solidarity with Japanese Defense Minister Shinjiro Koizumi telling Defense Secretary Gilberto Teodoro Jr. that his country was “ready to provide support and cooperation” and “stands with the Philippines in overcoming this time of difficulty.”
Even diplomatic differences were set aside as China donated P142 million in cash and in kind to help the victims of the strong typhoons. “We sincerely hope that the Filipino people in the disaster-stricken areas will recover and rebuild their homes soon,” said the Chinese government.
With such goodwill extended to the Philippines, the least that the government should do to show its appreciation for the outpouring of generosity is to ensure that every peso equivalent of the support will be spent or used for the intended purpose.
It is bad enough that unscrupulous government officials and private contractors have allegedly been stealing billions of pesos for flood control and other infrastructure projects, but to profit off disaster relief programs amid pain and suffering is especially heinous.
Most disaster-prone
Indeed, the Philippines cannot afford to develop a reputation of disaster relief and assistance being lost to corruption as the Philippines will likely need to secure further support down the road as typhoons Uwan and Tino will not be the last to hit the country.
The Philippines, after all, is one of the world’s most disaster-prone countries due to its location in the Pacific typhoon belt and the ring of fire, making it especially vulnerable to typhoons, flooding, and earthquakes.
As Canada’s Sarai said, the recent series of disasters “has provided a heartbreaking reminder of how climate change can intensify the extreme weather that we face. The typhoons that you had after long periods of time are now quicker, faster, and with more severity, and this is causing increasing damage and threatening lives, especially to the people here in Philippines.”
Against such a stark observation, the Philippines will need the support of its friends and partners if it were to weather more disasters in the future. The Philippines cannot afford to squander international goodwill and solidarity by allowing disaster funds to be wasted on corruption and incompetence.
