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ILOILO: US Navy doctors will help local medics treat
victims of Typhoon “Frank” in central Philippines, an American
commander said Friday, despite threats from communist guerrillas.
“This is the kind of work we
want to do,” US Navy task group commander Rear Admiral James
Wisecup said as he announced the deployment.
More than 505 people died and
over a million have been left homeless after Frank, which was called
internationally as Fengshen, battered central and northern
Philippines last weekend.
The number does not include the
hundreds thought killed when a passenger ferry sank carrying more
than 850 people.
Six US Navy Seahawk helicopters
from the USS Ronald Reagan carrier arrived in Iloilo on the central
island of Panay on Thursday, to help deliver aid to some of the
worst affected areas.
“I have ordered my medical
personnel on board the USS Ronald Reagan to coordinate with
provincial officials on the deployment of medical personnel who will
conduct missions in isolated areas,” Wisecup said.
US Navy staff also met with local
officials to discuss drug and medicine requirements to prevent the
outbreak of disease and treat illnesses among evacuees.
The US Seahawks will likely fly
bags of rice to the smaller islands surrounding Panay which have
been cut off because of rough seas, said provincial administrator
Manuel Mejorada.
Earlier in the week, the
insurgent Communist Party of the Philippines warned “American
forces against using ‘relief work’ as a pretext to trespass into
guerrilla zones and revolutionary base areas.”
The party, with its 5,000-strong
armed wing, the New People’s Army, has been waging a Maoist armed
struggle for a communist state for the past 39 years.
US President George W. Bush
ordered the carrier to the Philippines during talks on Tuesday with
his Philippine counterpart, Gloria Arroyo, in Washington, D.C.
--AFP
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