‘Tacloban in bad shape; bodies lie on the street’

“Masamang-masama (terrible),” Interior and Local Governments Secretary Mar Roxas told President Aquino by phone yesterday.

Roxas described conditions in Tacloban City, said to be the hardest hit by supertyphoon Yolanda.

He said corpses could be seen on the road as well as survivors boiling water over improvised stoves.

Roxas was in Cebu, where he could get a clear phone signal to report to the President.

Aquino called him up the middle of a press briefing at the Benito Ebuen Air Base in Lapu-Lapu City.

Roxas arrived on board a C-130 aircraft from Tacloban City at past 6 p.m. last night. He and Defense Secretary Voltaire Gazmin were immediately briefed by Lt. Gen. Roy Deveraturda of the AFP Central Command.

Deveraturda said soldiers helped clear all roads of fallen trees and poles in northern Cebu, though communication remained sporadic.

Roxas said teams will be sent to conduct an aerial inspection of northern Cebu. He said a Navy vessel carrying 10 tons of relief goods will be sent to Bantayan island, one of several towns hard hit in northern Cebu last Friday.

But it was Tacloban City that sustained the most number of casualties and damage in Yolanda’s wake, Roxas told President Aquino over the phone.

He said houses and some buildings in coastal communities in the city were wiped out.

He told the President that he and Gazmin had to go to Cebu for a better signal because communication lines are down in Leyte province.

As a result, Roxas said the police couldn’t respond to reports of looting in stores.

He said he even saw someone running away from a mall with a remote controlled helicopter toy.

Despite this, Roxas said the airport in Leyte can now be used after it was cleared by the police and military.

Deveraturda said a Navy vessel will arrive early today carrying several tons of relief goods along with two water purifiers.

Roxas said the National Food Authority (NFA) in Leyte assured that there are still 114,000 rice stocks in their inventory.

“There should be a semblance of a stable food supply to avoid hoarding,” Roxas said.

He said he instructed local officials to distribute two kilos of rice to the evacuees.

The Naval Forces Central (Navforcen) said their nine vessels are available to deliver relief goods from organizations and persons wishing to donate to families of typhoon-hit northern Cebu towns, Samar, Leyte and Camotes Island.

“They should include in their letter the quantity of the goods and the type of goods that they want to donate so that we can estimate the quantity that we can load aboard the vessels,” Navforcen information officer Lt. James Reyes said.

He said donors should also have their representatives and own personnel to help monitor, repack and load the goods since most Navforcen personnel were already deployed in affected areas.