President Benigno Aquino III has appealed for calm through the dissemination of proper information to help the public return to their normal lives following Monday’s killer earthquake.
The President made the appeal after he noted that many victims of the earthquake, especially in the northern towns of Negros Oriental, especially in the City of Guihulngan, still refuse to return to their homes for fear of stronger aftershocks or a tsunami.
In a meeting of the National Disaster Risk Reduction Coordinating Council at the Sibulan-Dumaguete airport Wednesday afternoon, the President noted that the mass evacuations which turned many towns in northern Negros Oriental into virtual ghost towns, would not have happened had the public been informed by the Department of Science and Technology about the science behind earthquakes and tsunamis.
He asked the local government units to help the DOST in disseminating information to the public.
The President also took aim at newspapers for choosing photos and highlighting information that could cause alarm. One newspaper, Aquino said, showed children crying after the earthquake. “Of course, it’s normal for them to cry. It’s their first experience with an earthquake,” he said.
He also said the death toll in the newspapers, which included the missing, was much higher than the official figures reported by government agencies.
The President, who turned 52 years old yesterday, reviewed the plans of the government line agencies during the meeting of the NDRRCDC, emphasizing on the need for immediacy in all their actions.
He also turned over a check worth PHP 5.7 million to Negros Oriental Gov. Roel Degamo for the government’s Cash for Work program for municipalities affected by the earthquake.
This amount is separate from the PHP 3 million and PHP 1.3 million extended by the DSWD earlier to the City of Guihulngan and the town of La Libertad, respectively.
DSWD Secretary Dinky Soliman revealed that a total of 12,286 families have been affected by the earthquake in northern Negros Oriental but this could still rise as the reports from Guihulngan are still being validated.
