Manila: President Benigno Aquino called for police escorts and fast-tracked delivery of food supplies to avert reported looting by victims of Typhoon Bopha, which killed more than 1,000 people, eradicated villages, altered topographies, and damaged agricultural products in the southern Philippines for two days, from December 4 to 5, senior officials said.
“The PNP [Philippine National Police] has been instructed by the President through [Interior] Secretary Manuel ‘Mar’ Roxas to prevent any more incidents of looting,” deputy spokesperson Abigail Valte, said in a government-run dzRB radio station.
“This problem began because some places were inaccessible and we had a hard time to enter them and distribute relief goods. We need to do two things: to speed up, to open access to those areas; and to make sure that the looting incidents do not happen anymore,” Valte said.
At the same time, Secretary Roxas confirmed that policemen were already deployed to watch over warehouses where food and water supplies for the victims of Typhoon Bopha were stored in Cateel, one of the hardest hit municipalities, including Boston and Banganga towns, in Davao Oriental.
This was done also in a warehouse of the National Food Authority in Compostela Valley, one of three other hard hit municipalities in Compostela Valley, including Monkayo and New Bataan, Roxas told the Inquirer in a phone interview.
“We want to ensure that the storages of food are secured so that the distribution of relief good will be orderly, and the homes and abandoned structures are safe from stealing,” Roxas added.
Moves to avert looting began after President Aquino held a briefing with local government leaders on Sunday, in which he sternly asked a regional police director to explain reports that 17,000 bags of rice were lost in a warehouse in Cateel, Star said.
“It’s not an excuse not to know what happened in your AOR [area of responsibility],” Star quoted Aquino as saying at the meeting that was also attended by local government leaders.
Star also quoted Lt. Col. Lyndon Paniza, spokesman of the 10th Infantry Division, admitting that some residents managed to get wet sacks of rice from a submerged warehouse in Tapia Village, Montevista town, Compostela Valley.
“{But{ it was not looting actually. The affected residents happened to find wet sacks of rice, which they distributed to their neighbours,” Paniza added.
