Latest information on disaster damage and reports from NDCC:

Toll: 26 Dead 26 Missing a total of 30,260 families composed of 151,351 persons were affected by Typhoon Basyang in 408 barangays of 7 cities and 62 municipalities in 12 provinces of Regions III, IV-A, V and NCR

Fifty-four (54) evacuation centers were utilized and provided temporary shelter to 1,946 families or 9,511 persons. As of this report, 1,526 families or 7,545 persons are still inside 37 evacuation centers.

Damage reports:

Damaged Houses  the total number of damaged houses in Regions III, IV-A and V is 10,938
(920 totally and 10,018 partially).

Damaged Infrastructure:

Region III
Breakwater structure at Brgy Poblacion, Mariveles, Bataan was damaged
Region IV-A Sinisian Bridge along Palico-Balayan-Batangas Road due to scoured slope
protection (PhP 10M) and two (2) road slips near Diokno Highway (PhP 5M)
Tayabas-Mainit-Mauban Road Road slip reported (PhP1.80 M)

Region IV-B Manus Bailey Bridge I along Labangan Murtha Junction Iriron Road Brgy
Batasan, San Jose in Occidental Mindoro – damaged in Approach B (PhP 585,000)
Region V Inalmasinan Spillway Km 148+650 along Caramoan, Catanduanes Road
washed-out section (PhP50,000)

DepEd conducted immediate assessment and reported that 23 schools in Region

IV-A (3 elementary schools, 3 high schools; IV-B (2 ES); V (8 HS); and NCR (7 ES) have been damaged with estimated cost of PhP 4.87 M

Damage on Agriculture and Fisheries:
71,274 metric tons of vegetables, valued at P 1.398 M was lost from 207 hectares in the province of Laguna. PCG reports at least Eight (8) fishing vessels in Region III were totally damaged due to huge waves

Flooded / Washed out crops: There were 941 hectares planted with various crops were damaged (papaya, rambutan, lanzones, banana, corn) in the municipalities of Sta. Cruz, Sta. Maria, Mabitac, Pila and Sta. Maria, all of Laguna

Agriculture: The estimated cost of damage to infrastructure, agriculture, fisheries and schools in Regions IV-A, V and NCR was placed at PhP 23.696 M.

Overall assessment: New players and infighting information and media groups should share blame.

Overall much is being made in media in Manila over failures to communicate by several agencies in government on typhoon warnings.

Much of it per insiders caused by political positioning and efforts to take control over information dissemination as well as new people in place who cannot seem to put round pegs into square holes.

Overall the misconfiguration of the government’s main website where many local media outlets in affected areas get information online in the past is being reworked.

While this is ongoing new players in Governments information departments are still working on thier roles and old hands are reportedly somewhat tied down by a general failure of systems and not knowing which buttons to push or whom to talk to get more clear details out.

Worse yet politics is playing into even the old standbys of media to get information flowing from several areas that no longer clearly function as government tries to revamp its information and news release systems to get more data into the hand of media.

At the height of the storm for example – international news organizations looking at government website like Gov.ph the main Philippine government portal failing to find anything more than a polite form of under construction.

Some in the media circles of the current administraition claim they dont know the passwords or cant contact IP personel.

A quick trip to 5th floor of the philippine information agency would be in order for the new media people in the still newly created media communications group of the new administraition is all that is needed. Perhaps a few less celebratory parties and a little more getting down to work is order.

In fairness two of the new appointments – Ricky Carandang and Manolo Quezon I know personally as hard working fellows who most likely waded into floodwaters to try get whatever information they could out.

But last night while one half of Timog Ave and most of Quezon City was in darkness a black suburban with a presidentail seal and more bodyguards than normally are seen even around the President was at popular comedy club along Timog.

For all we know they were taking break from a hard days work and the vehicles were not government red plated but private however they did have presidential seals on them. A silver Isuzu Trooper served as a backup and a pair of Honda’s. No flashing lights nor blazing sirens which was common before though. Seven body guards in polo barongs though seemed polite about the whole thing but still perhaps it might have been better to choose another night to go out for laughs.

Since most of my neighbors and I were tag teaming available electrical outlets at nearby fast food place on the corner of mother ignacia and timog along with scores of other residents the scene kind of presented itself as somewhat of not so welcome sight to those standing the parking lot because most tables were full as they waited to charge cellphones and laptops and whatever else they could.

NDCC did a good job of information dissemination on its website – even if it was slightly slower than media outlets at least it was needed official information people could get to find out how things were direct from the source.

PAGASA’s website of DOST was slight out of sync coming in and out and radio proved the fastest way to information.

DzMM and DzRH and DzBB as well as DzXL providing much needed information. Take a well deserved bow guys for a great night of service. Am sure most errors were unintended but mistakes at the top cost lives and damage perhaps with this first disaster behind them the new guys on the block will have learned thier lessons and can work harder towards getting the job done.

NDCC Situation Report No. 9 on Typhoon Basyang (Conson)

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