Interview with Secretary Ricky Carandang
On ANC with Tony Velasquez and Bernadette Sembrano
[November 13, 2013]
(Start of recording)
Carandang: ..over a thousand armed forces personnel. All of these augmenting the ordinary security here in the province. And you can see, as you come from the airport, for example, to the command center, where the NDRRMC and the Cabinet secretaries regularly hold their briefings, you’ll pass through no less than 5 military and police checkpoints. And this high visibility of police and military has certainly brought down the number of incidents.
Let me add, Tony, and you mentioned this in your report, there have been some many reports of looting and rape that have turned out actually not to be correct. So we don’t know what the real number is. But certainly what we can tell anecdotally is that the added presence of police and military has restored to large extent, the order and the calm that should be prevailing here in Tacloban despite all of the problems that we face and certainly the job is not over. We are not saying that there are no problems but the added presence of the authorities here has certainly helped improved the situation significantly.
Velasquez: Well, that’s good to know because in another report posted on our abscbnnews.com site, it cited local businessmen in Tacloban who said they’ve been forced to abandon the city because of the threat of armed groups. Many of them reportedly well-organized using large trucks to cart away whatever they can find in any of the stores that they chance upon and they are moving from city to city outside of Tacloban or town to town outside of Tacloban. What have you been hearing about that?
Carandang: I’m not sure how systematic this has been. Certainly there have been reports of groups of people breaking into stores and taking some groceries and things like that for example, but they do not seem to me to be highly organized and doing it in a systematic manner as if this was some sort of an organized crime group. It seems more to me like people who are desperately hungry and who find that they have a little choice and so they’re doing this. It’s more random than systematic to me.
Velasquez: Alright. Let’s move on to the deployment now of the relief convoys as they were trying to spread out to the isolated towns there in Leyte and also to try to reach the province of Samar. Earlier, we were listening to Cabinet Secretary Rene Almendras saying that the roads have now been opened, that they can now begin deploying the relief convoy. Have you actually seen any of the trucks bringing relief supplies outside of Tacloban and to the other towns?
Carandang: Yes I have Tony. Actually, what was happening now is that we have designated two areas in Leyte -Tacloban and Ormoc as the main distribution points of the relief goods. So planes have been flying into Ormoc and they’re going to be the main distribution point for western Leyte, the towns on the western side of Leyte. The local governments will be responsible for getting the goods that we will leave in Ormoc.
That’s gonna be the same thing on the eastern side. Towns on the eastern side of the province, their mayors will be in-charge of getting the vehicles so they can fix them up in Tacloban. In some cases where the towns don’t have the resource to do that, then we will find ways to do it either through choppers or through trucks. But for the most part, I think most of the LGUs had indicated that they do have the transportation facilities.
So working together with the LGUs, we designated those two areas of Leyte -Ormoc and Tacloban as the main distribution hubs from which the local government will get their supplies.
In Samar, Tony, it’s going to be Guiuan. We have some flights coming to Guiuan -I’m sorry if I pronounced it wrong- but there will be flights going in there and that’s going to be where our logistics hub will come from.
Velasquez: Alright, that’s good to know. At least some movement already being made in terms of transporting the relief goods. Actually, I also want to know from your point of view whether or not the foreign media, particularly CNN, has been able to give accurate reports or observations on the field about the progress of relief efforts for Leyte and Samar. Do you feel that perhaps the reports don’t quite capture the accurate picture?
Carandang: Well, Tony, you as a reporter who’d been in the field many times, you know that it is not easy to capture all the nuances and all the complexity of a story. And I know that people from CNN who have been here since maybe Day 1 or Day 2 like Paula Hancock and Andrew Stevens, these guys had been here in Tacloban on the ground for days and they’ve given a more balanced and nuanced picture. I can’t say I agree with every assessment they made but at least you know that they’d been here on the ground and that they are speaking from and that they are trying their best to do a best balanced picture. I can’t re-argue with the reportage of the people I mentioned.
Velasquez: Alright. So, in terms of helping people to locate missing persons, who is going to be the lead agency now in tracking people who have been reported missing so far?
Carandang: We have a group here in the Disaster Coordinating Council which is normally headed by Volt Gazmin, and Mar Roxas, and Dinky Soliman. Those three, by the way, have been here since before the typhoon hit. And they are the ones regularly pooling with the local government officials, with the local police and they are trying to get these numbers of the dead and they are trying to make sure that dead bodies are given proper disposal for hygienic purposes and making sure that the distribution of goods goes smoothly. So it’s really what I can see on the ground is Mar Roxas, Dinky Soliman and Volt Gazmin who have been here on the ground. Upon of course the instruction and consultation with President Aquino himself.
Velasquez: So they’ve been able to at least mobilize people to look for persons who may have been reported missing. Because there are a lot of people who still don’t know where to turn to when they have missing friends or missing relatives and they still insist on going to the media. But who should we refer them to?
Carandang: Well every day, about four o’clock, the group here meets with the Cabinet secretaries, and local government officials, and the police and that’s where they go over the reports. People are free to come here and reports are submitted. The problem here Tony, is really, many of the people who are missing, some of whom I guess we can presume to have died, we haven’t been able to identify all of the bodies.
So it’s going to be very difficult at the end of the day to come up with the exact number of fatalities here given that some bodies have already been lost, some have been buried already, some have decomposed. So the number of missing and the number of dead will remain sort of uncertain for quite some time.
Sembrano: Sec. Carandang, so what is the government doing to put an ID on the bodies that they say are still scattered all over Tacloban?
Carandang: I think Bernadette, to say that they are scattered all over Tacloban is a bit of an exaggeration. Certainly there are operations to uncover bodies. Some bodies are still buried under debris and there are bodies that you can see body bags in certain areas where we’ve seen a lot of casualties. Some of them, as we said, can be identified by their neighbors and so when that happens, we can get a good ID. There are inevitably some cases, where there is no one to identify the body or the body is in a state of decomposition so it’s difficult to identify them. I guess, what I’m saying is, I don’t know if we’ll get an exact number of who died and who’s missing given the situation were seeing on the ground.
Sembrano: So ano pa pong ginagawa natin? Kasi apparently, marami pong nagpa-panic. So what is the government doing to lessen the panic of our kababayans in Tacloban, and perhaps in other areas as well?
Carandang: Actually, Bernadette, I don’t see people panicking. I could certainly understand why things were very tensed in the beginning. When the typhoon hit and immediately after when people didn’t know what to do. A lot of our first responders, the locals, local police, local authorities also died. They lost family in the storm. And so, perhaps, they had a hard time responding right away.
We’re into Day 5, Day 6 of this, and a lot of the augmentation of the police and military has helped restore a lot of the order. And the distribution of goods, as you can see, is improving and it’s getting out there. Everyday, more and more goods are distributed. So I think, far from panic, I think what happened is things are actually…they’re still…don’t get me wrong. They’re not normal. They’re still certainly, still desperate. But I think, the sense of panic that perhaps people felt in Day 1 and Day 2, has eased somewhat because of all the efforts of the local communities, and the national government, and the international aid agencies.
Sembrano: So for the residents who live there, would you advise them to stay in Tacloban or those who have relatives who are worried about Tacloban, would you actually recommend or advise them to go if they want to go back to Tacloban?
Carandang: I think people should go where they can be assured of regular food and shelter. There are people here in Tacloban who have resources and actually a lot of people from the local community, not just Tacloban, but other parts of Leyte, have been actively pitching in to help their communities. So if you have means and you’re willing to help, then by all means, stay and help.
There are those, though, who perhaps might be better off temporarily relocating. It’s really an individual decision based on your own circumstances. I just want to say though that I’m very grateful, and I think most people from Leyte, are very grateful, for the people who are here, who could leave if they wanted to. They have their resources to stay for a while in Cebu, or Metro Manila, or even overseas with families, but they chose to stay here to volunteer to help other people who have been victimized by the storm. I think everybody in Leyte should be grateful to them.
Velasquez: Secretary Carandang, of course, the immediate priority would be to provide relief to the people, to the survivors, also to locate many of the missing, but in terms of trying to restore a sense of normalcy to these places devastated, a lot of people seem desperate to actually just leave the typhoon-hit areas such as Tacloban and other towns, is there a government, I guess, policy now that would try to dissuade them from actually leaving these places and encouraging them to stay instead of just shifting the burden to other urban areas where they might want to move over to?
Carandang: I think Tony, at this point, if anybody who’s living here who got hit by this immense tragedy wanted to leave, I don’t think we have any right to stop them. In fact, what the government is doing, as you know, we’re airlifting supplies into Leyte and into Samar. There are people who are able to catch on…because the flights are kind of empty of the way back. So, if a plane is going to Cebu for example, and people want to ride on it, people are riding on it. If people want to go back to Manila or to go to Manila, we allow them as much as the capacity permits to fly back when they need to. That’s really and individual decision and I don’t think we can blame people if they want to leave this place for a little while. It can be hard sometimes without electricity, without regular source of potable water in some places, and even cell signals, to be comfortable here. So if people want to leave, we are doing what we can to accommodate them. And again, if people want to stay and they are able to help, then we certainly thank them for that.
Sembrano: Secretary Ricky, is the government able to distribute relief goods on a regular basis now?
Carandang: Yes, we are Bernadette. A lot of the clearing operations that prevented the fast distribution of goods have now been accomplished, at least as far as Leyte is concerned. And the reason why we’re using Ormoc and Tacloban as the distribution hubs is because most of the towns, almost all of the towns, can access either one or the other. So distribution is getting more regular and getting more frequent and they will continue as long as it needs to.
Sembrano: how is the government addressing the reports that na-holdap daw some of the relief goods heading to Tacloban? There are reports that came out. What is the government doing with it?
Carandang: As I’ve said earlier, at the beginning of this interview, we’ve augmented our police and we’ve augmented our armed forces. There’s an additional police and AFP personnel that are in Leyte in order to maintain peace and order. Certainly, there have been reports of looting. Not all of them have turned out to be true. Still, given the situation, we’ve put 2,000 additional troops on the ground. As I was telling Tony earlier, if you’re going to the airport, you’re going to the command center, you’ll run into at least 5 checkpoints on the way. This added police visibility has actually helped prevent more lootings from taking place.
Sembrano: Secretary, pati po yung mga biyahe from RoRo, ganun rin ho ba ang setup?
Carandang: RoRo?
Sembrano: Oo, kasi marami ho RoRo, hindi naman po through the aiport. Papaano po kaya? I mean, yung highways po ba natin…
Carandang: Hindi po. Ang sinasabi ninyo po ay people traveling by land. Because we don’t have policemen or soldiers in the airplanes or in the boats. We have them on the road, on the ground in Leyte. And that’s where looting and the incidents have been reported. Hindi naman po nare-report sa eroplano o sa RoRo itong mga insidenteng ito kaya naglagay po kami ng tao dito sa mga kalye sa Leyte.
Sembrano: So at least, assured na.
Velasquez: Is the President still considering traveling to Japan a couple of weeks from now or is that trip being considered to be postponed?
Carandang: You know, we’ve been so busy with this Tony, we haven’t even discussed that yet to be honest with you.
Velasquez: When was the trip originally scheduled for, I think it was December?
Carandang: I think it was scheduled for November or December, if I’m not mistaken, either late November or early December. But with everything that’s been going on, we really haven’t had the chance to discuss that. As far as the government is concerned, it’s all hands on deck trying to help the people from Leyte and Samar and the other areas that have been hit by this terrible storm.
Velasquez: Alright, well Secretary Carandang we appreciate you took the time, and apparently, the cell phone signals must be pretty, must have improved significantly from the previous days because your signal came in pretty strong with no drop in the voice call.
Carandang: Actually, it’s gotten much better since earlier this morning when I arrived. So we can see that at least the cell phone signals are also improving now.
Velasquez: Exactly, sounds like you were reporting for ABS-CBN in the good ‘ol days, Secretary Ricky Carandang.
Carandang: It’s good to hear from you guys, Tony and Bernadette. And thank you for giving us the time to explain what were doing here.
Comments are closed.