Aid workers feel like victims in relief bickering

BAGUIO CITY—The political bickering over who best led relief operations in typhoon-stricken Tacloban City has made some social workers in the Cordillera region feel they are its collateral damage.

Government nutritionist Marcia Espinueva and social workers Maryanne Bucloc and Theodore Solang, of the Cordillera office of the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD), were part of an augmentation team which organized food distribution and helped set up a tent city for survivors in the first crucial days after Supertyphoon “Yolanda” flattened the city on November 8.

Because they served as the first set of manpower for national government relief efforts in Tacloban City, the social workers said they were hurt by claims made in a December 9 Senate inquiry that the government’s relief response had been slow.

Most Tacloban officials were absent on those first few days, Espinueva said, adding that she was willing to testify in the Senate to set the record straight about the much-criticized aid work in the Visayas.

“When [the nine-member team from the Cordillera] arrived there [on Nov. 12] there was no local government [presence]. We understand why. But they should not speak ill [of our efforts there],” she said.

Solang said the team was sent by DSWD Cordillera Director Leonardo Reynoso on Nov. 11. Team members were able to catch a flight to Tacloban the following day, making them the first DSWD augmentation team from Luzon to reach the city and provide support as part of the national government relief mission.

Solang said the Cordillera team was put to work repacking food for the survivors at a warehouse.

On Nov. 16, Espinueva, Bucloc and other Cordillera volunteers helped set up and organize the tent city for 12 villages outside the Tacloban Astrodome. They saw how the survivors tried to settle down as corpses on the streets surrounded them.

On their first day in Tacloban, Solang said, the team had to hide the little food supply they brought with them as they were escorted to the warehouse “because we did not want to create a commotion.”

He said resources at the time were sparse, and even a hint of where to get food may stir up a mob. Vincent Cabreza, Inquirer Northern Luzon