Lessons from ‘Yolanda’: Aquino scraps schedule

President Benigno S. Aquino III. INQUIRER PHOTO / GRIG C. MONTEGRANDE

President Benigno Aquino on Wednesday canceled all his scheduled activities to monitor Typhoon “Glenda,” the strongest storm to hit the country this year.

Aquino was scheduled to open the Defense, Security, and Crisis Management (Adas) Exhibition and Conference at the World Trade Center in Pasay City. The opening of Adas was reset Thursday.

There is no word yet if Aquino will still attend the event, the first defense and security conference to be held in Manila in 15 years.

Aquino was also scheduled to meet with Executive Secretary Paquito Ochoa and Presidential Chief Legal Counsel Alfredo Caguioa as well as his speechwriters.

Presidential spokesperson Edwin Lacierda told the Philippine Daily Inquirer that he had yet to receive the President’s feedback on his storm response monitoring.

The government was widely criticized for its slow and disorganized response to Super Typhoon “Yolanda” last year. It was the strongest typhoon to hit land in history and practically leveled a large swath of Eastern Visayas.

Lacierda said the response to Glenda would benefit from “heightened emphasis on disaster preparation and awareness.”

“We learned a lot from [Yolanda]. The President has emphasized preparedness with the end in view of minimizing casualties… our aspirational goal is zero casualty,” Lacierda said.

In a statement sent to the media, Lacierda praised the public, media, local and national government agencies for working together “to ensure preparations were in place and information disseminated effectively and in a timely manner, during the approach and progress of the storm.”

“We ask the public to continue monitoring media and online resources to be updated on the weather and advisories concerning cleanup and restoring services,” he said.

He added that Aquino was monitoring the situation of evacuees and the return of power and communications to communities.

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