US forces asked to help search for missing `Pablo’ victims

DAVAO CITY, Philippines—US forces operating in the country under the Joint US Military Advisory Group (Jusmag)along with six, or about half of the Philippine Air Force’s helicopter inventory, have been tapped to speed up the search for hundreds of people still missing in Compostela Valley and Davao Oriental in the wake of Typhoon Pablo.

Interior Secretary Mar Roxas said the President also ordered the deployment of more K-9 teams of sniffer dogs to the disaster areas and to ensure the speedy delivery of relief goods to the survivors.

The repositioning of forces for the search and retrieval operations was ordered after Mr. Aquino admitted he was disappointed that nobody could tell him if someone had contacted communities isolated from the main towns.

The national disaster response office said it has recorded 383 missing persons, 439  dead and 445 injured in the two affected provinces.

The President has designated Eastern Mindanao Command chief Lt. Gen. George Segovia overall coordinator of the operations. Segovia’s team was asked to submit a periodic report or mission progress report.

“I want to see the movement towards completing the search-and-rescue operations,” Mr. Aquino said during a briefing for reporters in Davao City after he visited the disaster areas on Thursday.

Mr. Aquino also ordered a review of the safety of evacuation centers after being told that most of those who perished in New Bataan, Compostela Valley, were housed in an evacuation center that was itself flattened.

Mr. Aquino noted that an evacuation center he visited in Barangay Andap sat in the middle of three rivers below a mountain. He said this should not have been considered as a shelter.

Social Welfare Secretary Dinky Soliman said P34.85 million, of which P15 million came from the local government units, had been spent for the needs of the evacuees.

In Tagum City, Mayor Rey Uy said the city was taking care of the food and other needs of some 2,000 flood victims from Compostela Valley, who fled to the city. He said the evacuees were scattered in the city’s 20 districts or barangays.

Uy said the city government had shelled out P3 million for the evacuees’ food and medicine needs, and another P3 million for non-food assistance such as galvanized iron sheets for roofing, wood, nails and other house-building materials.

Uy said helping storm victims from Compostela Valley was a sort of “payback” as the city gets most of its revenue from the banana and mining industries in the storm- ravaged province.

The province’s governor, Arturo Uy, is the mayor’s elder brother.