‘Don’t make big deal of Aquino skipping Tacloban’
Super Typhoon “Yolanda” survivors go on their daily business inside a “Tent City” provided them by aid agencies in Tacloban City on Wednesday, Nov. 5, 2014. They will miss President Aquino (inset), who will skip Tacloban as he hopscotches on Friday across a region devastated by Yolanda (international name: Haiyan). AP PHOTO/BULLIT MARQUEZ
DAVAO CITY, Philippines—President Aquino will skip Tacloban City as he hopscotches Friday across a region devastated by Super Typhoon “Yolanda” (international name: Haiyan).
Interior Secretary Mar Roxas appealed to the media not to make a big deal of the President’s whirlwind tour of the Visayas on the eve of the first anniversary of Yolanda’s onslaught.
“You’re magnifying this. There’s no issue about it,” Roxas told reporters on the sidelines of the Philippine Development Forum in Davao City, keynoted by the President, that presented the Bangsamoro Development Plan.
Aquino will visit Guiuan town in Eastern Samar, Palawan province, Bantayan Island in Cebu province and Aklan province Friday because the President had set aside Saturday to prepare for his trip to Beijing for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (Apec) meeting from Nov. 9 to 11.
When he returns to Manila at 3 p.m. Friday, the President will brief the media at Villamor Air Base on the measures prepared by the government against the threat of the deadly Ebola virus to the country.
Rift denied
Roxas denied that the administration’s rift with Tacloban Mayor Alfred Romualdez was the reason the President was avoiding the city, where most of the fatalities were reported.
“In fact, shortly after Yolanda, one of the major [fund] release of the DILG (Department of the Interior and Local Governments) is for Tacloban, amounting to more than P200 million. This money was downloaded direct to the LGU (local government unit) so I think there should not be any spin or interpretation on the issues,” Roxas said.
A short video clip uploaded on YouTube by Romualdez’s father-in-law had Roxas telling the mayor a few days after Yolanda hit the region on
Nov. 8, 2013, “You have to understand, you are a Romualdez and the President is an Aquino.”
Roxas called the video “malicious” because it was apparently spliced. Longer versions of the video were later released.
Asked if he was still hurting from the allegations that the government’s response to the tragedy was slow, Roxas said as public servants, he and his fellow government officials “don’t have any right to feel hurt.”
“All the decisions that we do will be criticized. There are those who are unhappy. But the basis of our decision is for the good of many, that is the only principle that we follow,” Roxas said.
Face survivors
In a statement, Bayan Muna secretary general Renato Reyes blasted Aquino for leaping over Tacloban.
“Is it because of the protesters that will be gathering in the city starting tomorrow? Or is it still because, as Mar Roxas puts it, the President is an Aquino and the mayor is a Romualdez? Why can’t he face the outraged survivors on this important day?” Reyes said.
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