EDITORIAL - Security all but forgotten in Tacloban

Reports coming out of Tacloban, by word of mouth or through social media, are painting a very grim picture of what is happening there, describing a situation that cannot be anything else but a creeping anarchy that is contrary to official assurances of a normalcy returning to the ravaged city.

Looting reportedly continues in Tacloban, although not of the scale, openness and spontaneity that characterized the earlier crimes just days after supertyphoon Yolanda flattened the city. This time the looting is more surreptitious and low-key, targeting not malls but smaller businesses and homes.

The looters break into these places, especially if these have been abandoned by their owners who fled to other places, or simply left alone for a while for one reason or another. The break-ins use a variety of methods for entry, with some reports of looters even using acetylene torches to create openings on doors.

Others are allegedly more brazen, actually knocking on doors of homes to demand that things of value be turned over, or else. Reports of rape have also been aired, although these may have been somewhat exaggerated. But the reports of looting and robbery have been so consistent they could not simply have been tall tales.

Shortly after the typhoon, there have been calls to place Tacloban under a state of martial law. Now that may be a little too extreme. But the undeniable fact is that there is a very urgent need to put boots on the ground -- by the thousands if necessary -- to put back law and order into the ravaged city.

The government should grab the bull by the horns. If that is what is happening, then it must deal with it. Trying to sweep the matter under the rug because such reports tend to embarrass the country will not let the problem go away.

Giving false assurances of normalcy and then doing nothing, or not enough, to secure the situation will only embolden the criminals with the thought that government is not really that serious in cracking down on crime.

Before any real rehabilitation of  Tacloban can even actually begin, the place has to be made safe first or else any effort to regain what Tacloban used to be and even be better will fail because of the entrenchment of crime in the city. To rise again, Tacloban must be rid of the criminals who have descended upon its ruins.