CNNs Cooper scores PNOY govt for slow aid response
The debate has been brewing over the performance of the PNOY cabinet on the Yolanda tragedy:
1. Sec. Mar Roxas said that the devastation was so much that the LGUs could not attend to the needs of everyone. But people were relying on the word of the Pres prior to the arrival of the typhoon. But we thought, that the national govt would be given its full support (meaning to say the cabinet officials had anticipated the extent of the damage that might result from the supertyphoon)
2. The residents/victims and some UN officials point to lack of knowledge and information and coordination on the ground. There was lack of good management and leadership? Hmmm this is an embarrassment to us PNOYs
CNNs Senior Correspondent Anderson Cooper has scored the PNOY govt for slow response to the tragedy (lack of direction and leadership?)
Here is the snippet of the news article
It wasn’t only Cooper who came up with these criticisms of the Aquino government’s handling of the relied and rescue. Other CNN reporters covering the typhoon story had the same observation.
Cooper’s plane was only able to land at the airport when the US marines cleared the airport of debris. Another CNN correspondent, Andrew Stevens said: “(I’m) increasingly frustrated.
“You walk around downtown Tacloban, there’s pile of rotting garbage; there are corpses and animals; there’s no real evidence of organized recovery, organized relief going on.”
The correspondent said he saw a van distributing relief goods but he guessed it was good only for 50 people. “There are tens of thousands of people who need food, water, clothes and medicines. “The frustration down there is extraordinary high,” the correspondent added.
In the midst of incredible disaster being experience by almost 700,000 people in the Visayas where an estimated 10,000 have died while others are convulsing in hunger, President Aquino was still in his usual blame the others mode, this time again on local officials for not heeding the “distress call”.
In his interview over CNN international with Amanpour, Aquino was asked about his responsibility as President. He was also asked whether or not he would agree that “the way you (Aquino) respond and your government respond to this terrible devastation will probably define your presidency”.
“I think you’re gonna ask all of the governors, for instance, on the areas that have been saying that… are making them aware of the dangers that were forthcoming from this typhoon that enabled them to move their population from danger areas and to safer areas and thereby minimize casualties.
“A lot of them, with the exception of Leyte province, Eastern and Western Samar, have reported that practically, well, one or two casualties or even zero casualties, when normally when we have a typhoon you will also have ships that were travelling that would have sunk, casualties in the hundreds probably didn’t merit too much attention,” was Aquino’s excuse.
On a personal note, Aquino was asked: ”How has it affected you, what you’ve seen, and how do you manage to reassure your people who have gone through this super typhoon, after the earthquake, after the typhoon last year?
Aquino said typhoons in the country are not unusual occurrences, but that this year has been an exceptionally bad year, with more than 20 visits.
He then claimed that he has been able to “demonstrate as a government and as a people, collectively, that we take care of each other and the government’s immediate response, I think, has been reassuring to the vast majority of our people,” claiming that he has that ability to take care of problems rather quickly.
He put the blame on the local executives, saying it is they who are responsible for the relief and rescue operations.
“Our system says that the local government units have to take care of the initial response,” Aquino said.
Rosemarie Church, a CNN anchor in Atlanta Georgia, commented that Aquino was trying to evade responsibility. Her co-anchor agreed with her.
In the worst hit areas where some of the local officials could not be seen or are presumed dead, survivors are looking up into the heavens, and the dead people, old and young, are piling up.
Aquino simply denied the slow response, as well as the bottleneck of trying to give vital aid to the people, laying all blame on the local executives.
