'PEPENG' SPARED METRO, BATTERED NORTHERN LUZON, 14 DEAD, SOME MISSING
MANILA, OCTOBER 5, 2009 (STAR) By James Mananghaya and Helen Flores - Fourteen people — one of them a baby —were killed in the Cordillera Autonomous Region and Bicol as typhoon “Pepeng” (international name “Parma”) mowed through these regions, and Cagayan Valley and the Ilocos Region on Saturday.No deaths were reported in the Ilocos Region and Cagayan Valley.
Pepeng is expected to be 210 kms northwest of Laoag City this afternoon; 230 kms north northwest of Laoag City tomorrow afternoon and at 240 kms west of Laoag City by Wednesday afternoon.
Pepeng remained almost stationary off Laoag City due to the presence of another strong typhoon outside the Philippines, the weather bureau said yesterday.
Nathaniel Cruz, Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration deputy administrator, said Pepeng might remain almost stationary for the next 24 to 72 hours after “interacting” with typhoon “Melor.”
“It is possible that it would return to Northern Luzon because of its interaction with Melor,” he said.
Cruz said Melor, which was moving fast, is expected to enter the country late this afternoon or early evening, based on latest forecast.
Once it enters the country, Melor would be given the local name “Quedan,” he added.
Senior weather forecaster Robert Sawi said Pepeng would likely merge with Melor and move northward towards Japan.
“The scenario of hitting Central Luzon is very slim,” he said.
However, Cruz said stormy weather would continue to prevail over northwestern Luzon.
“The public should continue being prepared,” he said.
Cruz said Metro Manila and other parts of Luzon would experience cloudy skies and rain showers.
“But not as bad as in the past days,” he said.
“The extreme Northern Luzon and the provinces of Ilocos Sur and Abra will experience stormy weather while the rest of Northern Luzon will have rains and gusty winds with moderate to rough seas.
“The rest of Luzon will be cloudy with scattered rainshowers and thunderstorms while the rest of the country will experience partly cloudy to cloudy skies with isolated rainshowers or thunderstorms.”
As of yesterday afternoon, Melor was spotted some 600 kilometers east of the Philippines with maximum sustained winds of 195 kilometers per hour near the center. It was moving west northwest at 24 kph.
Storm signal No. 3 remains hoisted over the Batanes Group of islands, Northern Cagayan, Babuyan, Calayan Islands, Ilocos Norte and Apayao.
Signal No. 2 was still raised over Ilocos Sur, Abra, Kalinga and rest of Cagayan.
Placed under Signal No. 1 were La Union, Benguet, Mt. Province and Northern Isabela.
12 killed in Benguet; 2 in Camarines Norte
In Benguet 12 people were killed in a landslide in Barangay Beckel in La Trinidad and Barangay Ampucao in Itogon town, all in Benguet province, according to Olive Luces, Office of Civil Defense-Cordillera Administrative Region director.
Chief Superintendent Samuel Diciano, CAR police deputy regional director for administration, said the five buried in a landslide in Beckel, La Trinidad were Catalina Tabora, Laruan Tabora, Zenia Galbey, Rustom Galbey and Daphne Galbey. a one-year old baby.
Miners Ernesto Gabayni from Mankayan town in Benguet; Alex Cadasa Rufino, 21, from Apayao; two more still unidentified miners and three children: Jeric Cadasa, 10; Jonie Cadasa, 8 and Lanoy Cadasa, 12 were dug out from the mudslide in sitio Manganese, Ampucao, Itogon town Benguet, according to Senior Superintendent Ramil Saculles Cordillera police regional operations chief.
The seven miners were sleeping inside their temporary quarters at around 1 p.m. when a huge landslide buried them, he added.
The two other fatalities were from Naga and Baao in Camarines Norte, according to the National Disaster Coordinating Council.
A total of 169,941 persons have been evacuated in the Ilocos Region, Cagayan Valley, Central Luzon, Calabarzon and Metro Manila as a preemptive measure, the NDCC added.
The evacuees are now staying with relatives and in 171 designated evacuation centers, the agency said.
The NDCC said the actual number of affected persons was placed at 68,589.
The initial estimate of damage to agriculture was estimated at P14.8 million, the NDCC added.
Lt. Col. Ernesto Torres, NDCC spokesman said the casualties from Pepeng, as compared to Ondoy’s were lower because of the preemptive evacuation of residents from hazardous areas.
Pepeng brought massive devastation to the area but no floods because the Cagayan River did not overflow, according to Chito Castro, OCD chief for Cagayan Valley.
In Ilocos Norte, clearing operations in Barangay Tarrag in Pagudpud were suspended after a Navy disaster response team was nearly buried by a landslide.
Lt. Col. Edgard Arevalo, Navy spokesman, said troops were advised to take extra caution in their operations to prevent any untoward incident while helping communities affected by the typhoon.
2 killed in accidents
Camp Nakar, Lucena City — Two people were killed in two different accidents during heavy rains brought by typhoon Pepeng in Quezon province last Saturday.
The first fatality, Melanie Salcedo, 27, died after the van she was riding collided with a parked truck in Padre Burgos town.
Ten of the van’s passengers were injured and taken to hospital.
The second fatality, Arceli Magpayo, 84, was hit by a tree while evacuating from Barangay Mabutag in Buenavista town, according to the Provincial Disaster Coordinating Council led by Dr. Henry Buzar.
Blackout in northern Luzon; no outside communications
Many areas in northern Luzon remained blacked out and cut off from communication yesterday.
Strong winds from Pepeng knocked down cables and telephone lines in northern Luzon, according to Armand Araneta, a civil defense official.
The provinces of Apayao, Kalinga, and Ifugao remained without electricity yesterday.
Several areas of Baguio City and Benguet were also suffering from blackouts.
Telecommunications in the hardest hit province of Cagayan was intermittent at best, while the provincial capital of Tuguegarao and other towns were still without electricity, the National Disaster Coordinating Council said.
There were also power interruptions in towns across Mountain Province and Abra, where residents were using generators, the agency added.
Fallen trees and electrical posts, as well as flooding on highways due to swollen rivers and landslides were also making it difficult to assess the full damage of the typhoon, officials said.
Power, phone lines and Internet links were down across northern Luzon, making it difficult to get reports about the extent of damage.
Cordillera police director Chief Superintendent Orlando Pestano said they are presently closely monitoring the Ambuklao, Binga and San Roque dams, whose water level rose slightly.
Several areas were closed to traffic like the Malanas bridge in San Juan town in Abra; Apayao-Ilocos road and Kabugao-Pudtol-Luna road in Apayao; Kennon Road, Long-Long road, and Lamtang Road in Benguet; Hapid bridge in Ifugao, and the Talubin-Barlig-Nationin-Paracelis road in Mountain Province, he added. — WIth Non Alquitran, Michelle Zoleta, Artemio Dumlao, AP
METRO MANILA BEING CLEARED OF GARBAGE / AMID LACK DON'T SEND NOODLES
By Mike Frialde - The Metro Manila Development Authority (MMDA) said some 20,000 tons of garbage and debris have to be removed from streets in order for relief and rehabilitation efforts to go unhampered.President Arroyo ordered local government units yesterday to clear within 72 hours Metro Manila roads of garbage and debris in the wake of tropical storm “Ondoy.”
MMDA Chairman Bayani Fernando said the garbage that had piled up in the aftermath of Ondoy’s devastation, together with the rest of the garbage in the metropolis, was 10 times more than the regular volume.
He said the MMDA alone cannot handle the task of collecting garbage and that it is just assisting local government units (LGUs).
The President ordered the massive cleanup after receiving complaints that relief and rehabilitation efforts were being hampered by tons of garbage blocking roads in many affected areas.
The uncollected garbage also poses threat to the health of communities, particularly at evacuation centers.
Mrs. Arroyo issued the order at the National Disaster Coordinating Council meeting at Camp Aguinaldo.
She directed the Department of the Interior and Local Government to order LGUs to implement her order.
The President said contractors hired by the LGUs should do everything they can to clean up the streets of garbage, including renting dump trucks to handle the huge load.
Fernando said the contractors of the LGUs are in areas hardest hit by the floods since these are considered the priority at this time.
Fernando also said the MMDA has found several temporary dumps and this would allow for a quick turnaround by the haulers.
“The contractors are all working but they are all at the affected areas right now,” Fernando said.
“There is still a lot of work that needs to be done. But the dumps are open and the garbage is moving,” MMDA general manager Robert Nacianceno said, for his part, in a phone interview.
He said they are now using heavy equipment such as bulldozers and payloaders just to collect and transport the garbage to the dumps.
No semestral break
Education Secretary Jesli Lapus asked schools yesterday to cancel semestral breaks and to hold makeup classes on Saturdays.
In an interview over radio station dzBB, Lapus said students need to catch up on their lessons and that schools have to exert all effort to get their programs back on track.
“We will also adopt modular instructions for home study,” Lapus said.
“The general rule is classes are back on Monday but the LGUs may declare otherwise,” he added.
He said government schools being used as evacuation centers would be cleared for the resumption of classes and the evacuees would be transferred to other evacuation centers like the Ultra Sports Complex in Pasig.
DepEd also asked LGUs to scout for safer areas where the evacuees could be relocated.
Thousands of Metro Manila and Rizal residents displaced by widespread flooding caused by Ondoy are now housed at several government schools, especially in the worst-hit cities of Marikina, Pasig, Pateros in Metro Manila and in Cainta and other low-lying municipalities in Rizal and Laguna. - With Marvin Sy, Pia Lee-Brago and Jaime Laude
'Amid lack, don't give noodles anymore' By Evelyn Macairan (The Philippine Star) Updated October 04, 2009 12:00 AM
MANILA, Philippines - The Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) yesterday called for a halt to the donation of noodles for the victims of tropical storm “Ondoy” amid a shortage of the product.
President Arroyo, meanwhile, ordered the Department of Agriculture to procure millions of instant noodles in order to make up for the shortage in the markets.
“We could always have alternative food relief goods, so the noodles could be used for personal consumption,” said Social Welfare and Development Secretary Esperanza Cabral.
Instead of handing noodles, the DSWD said donors could give evacuees personal hygiene products, cleaning materials, kitchen and cooking utensils, food, footwear, underwear, and sanitary napkins that are also badly needed by the displaced families.
Apart from identifying the relief goods needed by the victims, Cabral said they also intend to intensify their coordination with private organizations that are handing out relief to the victims of Ondoy.
She said that with so many private organizations that are on their own to distribute relief goods to the victims, there had been instances where there is duplication or evacuees in an area receiving two or more relief bags.
They have already asked these groups to coordinate with the DSWD, but to some of them “they look at this as an imposition of government and not coordination,” Cabral added.
But now they are planning to come up with a mapping of areas that have already received relief goods and areas that have yet to receive any form of assistance.
There are about 70,000 people who are temporarily sheltered in evacuation sites, while there are 30,000 victims living outside relocation centers.
With the arrival of typhoon “Pepeng,” the DSWD has also prepared and increased its standby funds for relief services in regions expected to be badly hit.
As of 2 p.m. yesterday, the DSWD said there were close to 700,000 families who had been affected by Ondoy.
They are scattered in 23 provinces, 29 cities, 135 municipalities and 1,428 barangays.
Bulk purchases
According to Agriculture Secretary Arthur Yap, the shortage of instant noodles at the supermarkets over the past week was caused by the bulk purchases made by private individuals and organizations for their contribution to the relief effort for the families displaced by Ondoy.
“In the past few days, everybody focused on buying noodles for relief so the demand was artificial. There was no supply in the supermarkets and the people are complaining,” Yap said.
President Arroyo authorized the DA, through the National Food Authority, to import instant noodles to augment the supply from the local manufacturers.
Yap said he is looking at an estimated five million units of instant noodles to be sourced from Indonesia and local suppliers.
He explained that Indonesia has some of the cheapest instant noodles in the region.
Trade and Industry Secretary Peter Favila pointed out that evacuation centers were flooded with instant noodles coming from various organizations and individuals involved in the relief effort.
He urged all of these organizations to coordinate with the DSWD on what to bring to the evacuation centers so they would be aware of what is actually needed more by the evacuees.
The private sector has already responded to the instant noodles supply problem, particularly the Metro Pacific Investment Corp. of businessman Manuel Pangilinan.
Yap said it was Pangilinan who facilitated the donation of one million cup noodles from Anthony Salim of Indofood.
He said Metro Pacific will donate another one million to the government.
Favila said the two million cup noodles were initially supposed to be used to augment the supply in the market, but the President decided that these should be donated to the evacuation centers.
Favila said local suppliers have committed to increase their volume of production to make up for the supply gap in the market.
However, if they fail to meet the requirements, then the DA is ready to start importing noodles from Indonesia. - With Marvin Sy
Chief News Editor: Sol Jose Vanzi
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