What Aquino missed in Central Luzon

President Benigno Aquino III. FILE PHOTO/MALACAÑANG PHOTO BUREAU

CITY OF MALOLOS, Philippines—It was clear to observers that President Benigno Aquino’s inspection of the flood plains of Central Luzon on Friday had cheered up residents who took refuge in the evacuation centers of  Tarlac, Pampanga and Bulacan because of the week-long monsoon rains and floods.

But there were issues or anecdotes they would have shared with Aquino had they met face to face.

Carlos Macasling, 50, of Barangay Sumapang Matanda here, said his family and other evacuees were suddenly transferred in military trucks from the provincial gymnasium to the Malolos sports complex in Barangay Sta. Isabel at dawn on Friday.

The reason: the local government was paid a bundle to reserve the gym exclusively for a weekend wedding.

Macasling said his family was ushered into a room with wet beddings, owing to leaks from the roof.

Jean Cristobal, caretaker of 23 families who were also relocated, said they were told that the wedding was booked even before the floods struck most Bulacan towns.

Provincial officials, apparently caught unaware, were incensed when told about the transfer, but no one offered any official statement.

To many evacuees at the sports complex, the transfer was disappointing because the President did not even reach them.

Mr. Aquino motored to the city proper, instead of the sports complex in the village as scheduled, because bad weather prevented a fleet of helicopters from flying him to several destinations on Friday.

The President and his Cabinet officials managed to visit the Malolos Central School, where 400 families took refuge.

Maricel Artacha, 26, said she would have told the President that she had given birth at home in the middle of the calamity. Her husband, Joel, 27, acted as midwife when she gave birth to their fifth child.

Floods left them isolated from neighbors and the nearest hospital and no medical teams could reach them, Artacha said.

But there was also some good news in the aftermath of the calamity.

In Benguet on Friday, volunteers finally rescued Felipe Plimaco, 34,  a pocket miner from La Union, a week after he was trapped in an eroding Bokod tunnel on Aug. 3.

Plimaco celebrated his birthday on Aug. 7 inside the tunnel, parts of which collapsed due to strong rains. Benguet miners worked to dig him out, said Lomino Kaniteng, president of a Benguet small-scale mining federation.

“We were never informed about this tunnel, which must be old because it is deep. The distance separating the rescuers and Plimaco was only two meters but the tunnel walls were fragile and crumbled every time the rescuers erected poles to stabilize the hole,” Kaniteng said.

Plimaco was fed air and food through a pipe that was inserted into the tunnel. As soon as he emerged, Plimaco was given eggs, rice and coffee.

With a report from Vincent Cabreza, Inquirer Northern Luzon