NAGA CITY, Philippines—The Church has condemned what it said was the malicious and fabricated reporting of typhoon damages by the provincial government of Camarines Norte, saying the province was spared from Tropical Storm “Ondoy.”

Fr. Norberto A. Eyule, executive director of the socio-pastoral action center of the Diocese of Daet, asked Defense Secretary Gilbert Teodoro in a letter to correct the damage report of Camarines Norte, which reported P73 million in damages.

A copy of the letter was furnished Inquirer.

Eyule said Ondoy did little damage to agriculture and nothing to infrastructure in the province.

Not from Ondoy

The provincial engineer, said Eyule, admitted at a meeting of the provincial disaster coordinating council that the damage report included those that were not caused by Ondoy.

“It is not proper for elected leaders to manufacture false information in order to get public funds,” said Eyule’s letter. “This is the bottom line of this issue.”

He said calamity funds, instead, should go to other storm-hit provinces and communities that needed resources to recover.

“We are concerned with the implication of the manufactured documents,” said Eyule. “They willfully cheated the information. It is even worse if they can justify this at the Commission on Audit.”

GMA proclamation

Camarines Norte was placed under a state of calamity by a proclamation of President Macapagal-Arroyo due to the supposed disastrous effects of Ondoy.

But Vice Gov. Roy Padilla requested the President last Oct. 2 to remove the province from the list of provinces under a state of calamity.

The Daet station of the Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration certified that rainfall in the province at the height of Ondoy was just 204 mm and winds were just 32 kilometers per hour.

Padilla said while some low lying villages were flooded, the water subsided quickly.

The vice governor said the damage to roads mentioned in the report were actually about roads that were in a “perennial” state of disrepair even before Ondoy struck.

Governor denies

But Camarines Norte Gov. Jesus O. Typoco Jr., in a phone interview Tuesday, denied the allegations of Eyule and Padilla.

“It is a standard operating procedure for the regional disaster coordinating council (RDCC) to ask for a damage report whenever a province is placed under a state of calamity,” said Typoco.

“So when the RDCC asked us to submit a report we just complied,” the governor added.

He accused Padilla of just grandstanding and playing politics. Eyule, the governor said, was simply critical of his administration.

He admitted that some of the roads mentioned in the report were already damaged even before Ondoy, but said the condition of the roads were made worse by heavy rains brought by Ondoy.

“Most of them are asphalt roads so they are easily worn out during heavy rains, such as what happened a week before and on the day Ondoy affected our province,” said Typoco.