Noy orders: Beef up relief efforts for flood victims

CAMP SIONGCO, Maguindanao, Philippines – President Aquino yesterday ordered the health and social welfare departments to intensify relief efforts for thousands of villagers displaced by floods in Central Mindanao.

This, as concerned agencies are focused on removing the water lilies that have impeded the flow of water in the Rio Grande de Mindanao, causing it to overflow and inundate low-lying areas along its banks.

Aquino told reporters his focus, for now, is the health and social welfare services needed by thousands of evacuees now housed in evacuation centers in Cotabato City and towns in the first and second districts of Maguindanao.

He directed health and social welfare officials to ensure that there are enough supplies of drinking water, food and medicine and to see to it that the evacuation sites are properly sanitized to prevent any outbreak of diseases.

Cotabato Archbishop Orlando Quevedo, chairman of the Mindanao River Basin Rehabilitation and Development Task Force, told the President in a dialogue here with local officials and regional heads of various line agencies that there are projects that have to be carried out to mitigate the perennial flooding in the lower delta of Maguindanao, which geographically spreads to several towns and more than half of the 37 barangays in Cotabato City.

Aquino assured the residents that he would mobilize the resources of the government to cushion the impact of the flooding.

Aquino arrived in Cotabato City’s Awang Airport past 8 a.m. yesterday and conducted an aerial survey of the flooding in the region. He also visited evacuation centers where thousands of residents have been staying for weeks.

The widespread flooding has killed 14 people in recent days, the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council said yesterday.

Large areas of Mindanao recorded more than two and a half times the normal level of rainfall in the first half of June, said Edna Juanillo, a climatologist at the state weather service. “This is quite abnormal,” she said. – With Evelyn Macairan