EDITORIAL - LGU officials simply wilted

It is a terrible torment to have loved ones and friends in places devastated by super typhoon Yolanda, and it does not help that images of Tacloban, the worst hit by the strongest typhoon ever to make landfall in all of recorded history, keeps flashing across TV screens worldwide.

A day or two after the storm, especially a storm of such magnitude, it would have been understandable not to hear of any news, good or bad. But three, four, or five days after the storm? When you still hear no news after such a long time has passed, clearly there is a failure of leadership somewhere.

And that is the sad truth in the aftermath of Yolanda. The Philippines has more than 10 million people working overseas, many of them driven to do so in search of a better life, many of them from the very same places devastated by the typhoon.

Quite naturally, these millions of OFWs, plus the millions of others who are just in the Philippines but who ventured far away from their places of birth, would be torn by anxiety over what could have been the fate that befell their relatives and friends, or of what the situation was in their hometowns.

Yet three, four, five days after the storm, no word has ever emerged from many of these areas. To be sure, there has been a loss of power and communication. But local leaders worth their salt, if they did not simply breakdown in face of the unforgiving challenge, would have found a way to bring their story out.

It is very important to bring news to the outside world. News will keep the anxious relatives in other places informed and allow them to act accordingly. More importantly, it will help the outside world appraise the situation in the isolated towns in order to bring in the kind of relief most urgently needed.

But nothing of the sort happened. In the heavily devastated province of Leyte, for instance, no town mayor ever had the presence of mind to order someone to walk, if necessary, to either Tacloban or Ormoc, devastated though these cities may be, to tell their story.

Tacloban and Ormoc may be devastated, but it is precisely their devastation that has attracted hordes upon hordes of mediamen from all over the world. It is also where the relief authorities and the national officials would be. They are the ones who could do something about the story, if only they had been told.

But many town mayors simply became wimps. They wilted under pressure. Neither Tacloban nor Ormoc is more than a day's walk away. If any mayor had the resolve to bring the story out, he could have sent somebody, anybody, and by any means, to tell their story. As it turned out, people relied on sketchy items on Facebook.