BAGUIO CITY?Fernal Balliaga, an aide at the city administrator?s office, spent almost 10 days crawling through mud under cracks of collapsed houses to rescue victims of landslides triggered by Tropical Storm ?Pepeng? (international name: Parma).

Balliaga?s efforts were rewarded when he pulled out three people from one disaster site. One of those he saved was a man who lost his children in the slide.

The man began looking for coffins for his lost family, only to discover that the carpenter making caskets for the slide victims was also his rescuer, Balliaga.

?The job never really ended at the disaster sites for our rescue workers,? said Ramon Dacawi, city public information officer.

But now that Balliaga and other volunteers have resumed their regular office chores, the city police force would be tapped to do frontline rescue work should Typhoon ?Ramil? hit the Cordillera this week, Mayor Reinaldo Bautista Jr. said on Monday.

City Administrator Peter Fianza said many volunteers, who had been helping government rescue teams since Pepeng struck, were suffering from fatigue.

The only time rescue workers worked this long was after the July 16, 1990, earthquake, which devastated central and northern provinces of Luzon.

TI, Holcim employees

Volunteer workers and government employees can help out once they are given enough time to rest, according to Fianza.

Other volunteers were from private companies operating in the city. People, who helped reopen the three main roads leading to Baguio, were employees of Texas Instruments Philippines Inc., Holcim Philippines and local miners.

?We rarely know who they really are or how they make a living,? Dacawi said.

He said this situation made work difficult for the City Disaster Coordinating Council. The council must make sure its manpower is healthy and ready for deployment for a second time should the new typhoon hit the city.

Mountain bikers sick

A group of mountain bikers, for example, has been suffering colds, after they hiked through mud in Benguet to deliver food and blankets to remote villages isolated by landslides on Oct. 10-14.

Joseph Paul Alipio, coordinator of the group Cordi Express Padala, said: ?It was very tough. Our bags were very heavy. We were carrying 20-50 kg of relief goods in our backpacks.?

?The terrain was inhospitable, even the footpaths were buried by landslides. We had to take an alternate route. We even had to cross the river. At one point, we even got lost,? he said.

Vaccination

Valencia said the Department of Health could be asked to treat rescue workers as part of its medical rescue team, so they could be vaccinated before they are tapped for rescue and relief work.

The city government is also taking stock of aid streaming into the city.

?We may have to deal with donor fatigue (or the eventual slowdown of goods donated by citizens here and abroad),? Dacawi said.

?It crossed our minds that the rescue workers proceeded to disaster sites and may have been unable to fend for their own families. Maybe a relief fund could be set up so they don?t worry about their children during times of crisis,? he said. With a report from Elmer Kristian Dauigoy, Inquirer Northern Luzon