Rescue workers in northern Philippines were on Monday trying to clear roads so that food, water and other supplies could reach survivors of landslides caused by Typhoon Pepeng that killed nearly 300 people there.

Agriculture Secretary Arthur Yap also on Monday said that damage to agriculture from Pepeng (international name Parma) and earlier from tropical storm Ondoy (international name Ketsana) has reached a combined P12 billion, with palay, or unhusked rice, accounting for the bulk of the loss in the provinces of Pangasinan and Cagayan in Northern Luzon, Pampanga in Central Luzon and Camarines Sur in Bicol region.

Yap added that Pepeng and Ondoy have affected almost 400,000 hectares of rice fields, 106,189 hectares of which were destroyed, resulting in the loss of around 559,629 metric tons of palay worth P9.5 billion.

Roads and bridges

The National Disaster Coordinating Council (NDCC) in Manila said that more than 50 road sections and nine major bridges in northern Philippines had either been destroyed in the landslides or washed away by floods, making it difficult to reach hardest hit areas.

Dozens of towns in the north of the country’s main island of Luzon also remained flooded after authorities were forced to release water from near-bursting dams on Friday because of a week of rains dumped by Pepeng.

The relentless rain loosened saturated soil in mountain communities in the Cordillera Administrative Region (CAR), triggering a deadly torrent of mud and rocks late last week that swallowed houses and roads.
The death toll in the region has reached 275, according to police there but the official toll as reported by the council stood at 199 and 189 as reported by local officials.

Desperate for supplies

In the popular mountain resort of Baguio, an Agence France-Presse photographer said that thousands of desperate residents were clambering through debris and negotiating roadside cliffs to bring supplies or to seek help.

The city had been totally isolated for two days, forcing the US military to airlift food supplies to the area.
Military engineers were also on Monday working to clear three main highways leading into Baguio, but have only managed to partially open one—Kennon Road—that was not yet fit for supply trucks.

Mayor Peter Bautista of Baguio said on local radio that the city of 300,000 people was running low on food and fuel.

“Our food supply was gone, our gasoline requirements are now reserved for priority emergency vehicles,” Bautista reported.

He said funeral parlors were also running low on coffins, with 54 deaths so far recorded in his city alone.

Death and destruction

Pepeng pummeled the northern region for a week before moving on the weekend into the South China Sea.

It first hit as a typhoon on October 3, exactly one week after Ondoy dumped the heaviest rains in more than 40 years on Manila to the south on Luzon island.

Ondoy has left 337 people dead, with the death toll from both storms surpassing 630. Another 300,000 people out of the over six million people affected remain in evacuation camps.

In his damage report, Secretary Yap said that almost 300,000 hectares planted to palay could still be recovered.

The Agriculture department put at almost P12 billion the loss in crops and fishes, with Ondoy accounting for P6.8 billion and Pepeng, P5 billion.

Enough rice supply

Despite the loss, Yap expressed confidence that there would be enough rice supply for the next seven months.

Yap said that the National Food Authority (NFA) currently has 1.2 metric tons of rice; households, 692,000 metric tons; and commercial-rice traders, 386,000 metric tons.

The Department of Agriculture, he added, was expecting around 4.7 million metric tons from the main crop harvest.

According to Yap, farmers could still recover from their losses in the first quarter of 2010 if the government poured in assistance.

To cover for the scarcity of supply of vegetables to Metro Manila, he said that traders could get it from Mindanao particularly in Cagayan de Oro City in Misamis Oriental and Bukidnon provinces.

Yap added that Nueva Vizcaya in Northern Luzon, which was not affected by Pepeng, could bring in 30 metric tons of vegetables to Metro Manila everyday.

According to Agriculture Assistant Secretary Dennis Araullo, prices of vegetables have gone up as much as 300 percent as a result of the damage to agriculture.

For rice imports, Yap declined to reveal the volume of the rice that the government would import.
“We will not panic, we will buy if needed,” he said.

Relief and rehabilitation

Filipino and American soldiers continued to help in search and rescue operations in Pangasinan and La Union in Northern Luzon and Nueva Ecija in Central Luzon.

So did the government, with President Gloria Arroyo allowing use of Malacañang aircraft to ferry rice and other relief goods to Pepeng’s victims.

Lorelei Fajardo, deputy presidential spokesman, said that President Arroyo made the decision after finding out that the Philippine Air Force lacked airplanes and helicopters in transporting basic goods to Baguio City and Benguet.

Also on Monday, the President sent two Huey helicopters to deliver food and medical supplies to Buguias and Atok towns in Benguet as vehicles could not penetrate villages there since Friday because of the landslides that blocked roads.

The helicopters brought rice, oxygen tanks and medicines for patients of the Lutheran Hospital in Abatan village in Buguias and the Atok District Hospital in Sayangan village in Atok, local officials said.
They also brought cadaver bags and embalming fluids to Buguias where the landslides killed eight people, they said.

To Northern Luzon will go six newly arrived Israeli doctors, nurses and paramedics to conduct free medical missions there.

UN official

In Malacañang, Mrs. Arroyo also on Monday conferred with United Nations Undersecretary General John Holmes on the UN Flash Appeal, an initiative intended to help the victims of Pepeng and Ondoy.
The UN Flash Appeal, launched in New York City and Geneva on October 6, was followed by a similar launch in Manila on October 7.

The Malacañang meeting was attended by Secretary Yap, Defense Secretary Gilbert Teodoro, Health Secretary Francisco Duque 3rd, Climate Change Adviser and Secretary Heherson Alvarez and UN Resident Coordinator Dr. Jacqueline Badcock.

During an interview, Holmes said that the United Nations had received nearly $20 million for the Flash Appeal and more pledges were coming for the calamity victims.

“I admire the efforts of the Philippine government. We are trying to support the relief efforts of the government as much as we can,” he added.

According to the UN, of the $74 million being requested under the Flash Appeal, its World Food Program (WFP) sought $26 million to fund its three-month emergency operation, already underway, to support Manila’s efforts by providing rice, beans and other commodities in the worst-hit Metro Manila and surrounding areas.

Despite the apparent pooling of resources by the public and private sectors here and abroad, critics also on Monday blamed the government for the severe flooding in Northern Luzon supposedly caused by dams that had brought profit to proponents but harm to the people.

“The dams, particularly San Roque dam [in Pangasinan], are supposedly designed and used to control floods. But the flooding these infrastructure have brought us proved that they were not really designed for that function,” said Dr. Giovanni Tapang, the chairman of AGHAM, a scientists’ group.

Ira Karen Apanay, Angelo S. Samonte, Jefferson Antiporda, Thom F. Picaña, Llanesca T. Panti and AFP