Albay Scores Zero Casualty Vs Glenda, Sustains P4.1B Damage*

Albay Scores Zero Casualty Vs Glenda, Sustains P4.1B Damage*

*The Entreprenuerial Farmer is publishing in his column the report from Albay how they achieved zero casualty during typhoon Glenda. 

Preemptive evacuation yielded Albay a zero casualty score against Typhoon Glenda which made its first landfall in the province and pummeled it for seven hours. It left destructions estimated at P4.1 billion, the Albay Provincial Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Office (PDRRMO) reported,

Packing center winds of up to180 kms per hour, Glenda made landfall in Albay on Tuesday afternoon. PAGASA said the province suffered the main brunt of the typhoon. Before it struck, however, Team Albay, led by Gov. Joey Salceda, had already evacuated over 65,000 families from risk areas to the safe evacuation centers.

“It means we have already learned. Despite this hazard, death was zero and recovery has begun,” Salceda said in an interview. He advised his constituents to immediately pick the pieces of their lives and rise up again. The Albay Provincial Board promptly declared Albay under a state of calamity. 

Salceda said Glenda’s biggest victims were Albay’s 9.4 million coconut trees, with an annual output worth P1.3 billion; 40,000 houses made of light materials, P1.2 billion; public infrastructures, P670 million; and other infrastructures, P540 million or about P4.1 billion.

“If this lost incomes and loss of productive capacity will not be compensated by infusion of new resources or net resource transfers, it would translate to an inevitable higher poverty and higher malnutrition,” he noted.

Under Salceda’s instructions, the Albay PDRRMO has immediately formed eight teams under the Plan for Albay Glenda Early Recovery and Reconstruction or PAGERR, to draw up a reconstruction plan to be submitted to the national government for immediate funding and execution. 

“If this is not funded, there will be 27,333 more poor families, and every day of delay in plan implementation means P1.2 million additional income losses and five more families poorer and hungrier,” he pointed out.

Albay has 72,000 poor families already as growth in tourism, agriculture and industry are offset by annual climate adversities.

Salceda pioneered preemptive evacuation and the ‘zero casualty’ goal, now bywords in Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) which have been adopted by the national government and many LGUs. The United Nations has declared Albay as its Global Model in DRR and Climate Change Adaptation.

Malacanang cited Albay for its “best practices” following its Glenda DRR operations in a statement Presidential Communications Secretary Sonny Coloma issued.

Salceda said President Aquino himself called him up at the height of Glenda’s fury to inquire on their preparations. He said he “felt reassured” by the President’s advice for him to call his cabinet secretary anytime if the national government support is needed.

He said his earlier suspension of classes was a preemptive strike and accomplished three things -- ensured the safety of 393,000 students, cleared school rooms for evacuees, sent an unmistakable warning of an imminent danger that may not yet be physically apparent.

Salceda had ordered all classes suspended 12 noon at the height of Glenda. Evacuation started at 3 pm, based on the forecasted landfall of Glenda in the morning of July 15. A new forecast issued at 5 pm July 14 has extended the landfall for another six hours the following day.     

“Exact discipline focuses our disaster response organization on the goal (zero casualty) and on the jugular (radical) measures by assembling a team of advisers whose professionalism, competence and performance on hazard forecasting and detection have been impeccable. Whatever their insufficiency, prayers overcompensates,” he explained.

Salceda now co-chairs of the UN Green Climate Fund, as representative of Southeast Asia and the developing countries. Team Albay, a home front emergency group he organized, has been a veteran of many mercy missions around the country during disasters and a recipient of many government and private sector awards. /MP