Maybe it’s just a matter of miscommunication?
“After a special Cabinet meeting on the aftermath of Typhoon Yolanda — almost a year after the storm devastated Eastern Visayas and killed more than 7,000 people — the Palace issued a statement reporting on the progress made in the affected areas,” reports Joyce Pangco Panares in Manila Standard Today.
Communications Secretary Sonny Coloma said, “There are no more survivors living in tents or in evacuation centers. In as much as humanly possible, Secretary Dinky Soliman said, all survivors have been assisted in their transfer to temporary shelters.”
The report reiterated that the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) secretary had claimed that “all the refugees displaced by Typhoon Yolanda have been moved out of tent cities and evacuation centers to temporary shelters.”
Efleda Bautista — leader of the People Surge coalition of Yolanda survivors — refuted Soliman’s reported claim.
Bautista stated, “Maybe she has not visited San Jose [in Tacloban] yet. There are still survivors living in tents there.”
She also added: “We are survivors. We do not manufacture hocus pocus data. We are the victims, and yet they insult us with their lies. You cannot blame us for being angry because it’s already been a year.”
However, a DSWD reports says the target is to have “no more Yolanda survivors living in tents by the end of December.” (See video below.)
Well, they better deliver, then.
Photo: Dinky Soliman’s Twitter page
