Eastern Samar needs help

Eastern Samar’s 47,000 families are in need of food, water and housing materials, Gov. Ben Evardone said on Sunday after the devastating impact of Typhoon “Ambo” on the province.

The town of Jipadpad is still hard to reach because of destroyed bridges, but some 2,500 food packs were sent there also on Sunday, according to Evardone.

The town of Arteche received 4,500 food packs on Saturday from the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD), but more is still needed, the governor said.

Evardone said provincial coffers had been drained by recent efforts to contain the coronavirus disease (Covid-19) pandemic because the bulk of the funds had been realigned to build Covid-19 facilities, aside from other relief efforts to frontliners and barangay (villages) put on lockdown.

“Tuloy pa din po ang repacking ng food packs para sa mga barangay. Kaya lang talagang problema na po talaga ang pondo namin sa ngayon (We continue to provide food packs for our villages. But our funds right now are insufficient),” he told The Manila Times.

Because the typhoon toppled homes to the ground including some evacuation centers, the governor said, residents are in immediate need of tents and other makeshift housing materials aside from food, water and medicine.

Evardone added that the provincial government had formally requested the national government and its line agencies led by the DSWD, the National Housing Authority and the Department of Public Works and Highways to tap their quick response fund and help the province recover because it is still fighting off the coronavirus pandemic.

The province has been successful in fending off the virus and has not recorded any cases.

Typhoon Ambo is the first typhoon to hit the country, with millions still reeling from the impact of the coronavirus pandemic and the Philippine government struggling to contain its economic impact.

Electricity and cellphone signals are yet to be restored in Eastern Samar as of Saturday.

Newly harvested coconut, rice and corn were damaged.

Houses and gymnasiums in the municipalities of Maslog and Oras were destroyed.

Road networks and bridges had been impassable because of flooding.

According to Eastern Visayas police, the typhoon left four dead in the province and displaced thousands of families.

In San Policarpio town, where the storm first hit land as a typhoon, a farmer bled to death after he was hit by a shattered glass while he was with his family in an evacuation center in Barangay Natividad, a police report said.