SENATE Minority Leader Juan Ponce Enrile on Wednesday grilled Department of National Defense (DND) officials on the department’s operations before and after the onslaught of Supertyphoon Yolanda (international code name Haiyan), and wondered aloud why it did not take the lead in operations to secure and protect concerned communities.
Enrile raised the questions in his interpellation during plenary debates on the DND’s 2014 budget proposal to Sen. Loren Legarda, who chaired the finance subcommittee that deliberated and endorsed the agency’s proposed budget for plenary approval.
“Why is it that the ground troops were not in place to prevent looting and mayhem in the area when they were supposed to maintain order?” he asked.
Enrile said the Armed Forces is usually alerted on weather disturbances in the country so they can “prepare all their resources to assist the population whenever the typhoon passes, including riverine equipment, in order to secure people who are hit by floods.”
“I’m sure they have done that. That’s why I was wondering why people were complaining that there were no communications. The secretary of National Defense can communicate with any member of the military who are in the country at any time, including the Commander in Chief,” he said.
Legarda said she was informed by DND officials that Defense Secretary Voltaire Gazmin was in the area a day before the typhoon made landfall, one brigade was deployed to Leyte, and one platoon to Tacloban City.
Gazmin told reporters after the approval of the DND budget that only one platoon was deployed to Tacloban City at the time since the city had been declared as “insurgency-free” and as such, the police takes the lead there as earlier agreed upon by the National Police and the Armed Forces.
“Since this is a police matter, the National Police should take over… There were soldiers, but only one platoon,” he said.
Legarda gave Enrile the same explanation, to which he said, “You cannot expect the police to operate in a calamity condition because their families are also affected. That’s why we have the military manpower.”
He said this was the reason for the organization of the National Disaster Control Center.
“The military is always the one in command with the calamity operations. They are the first one to be on the scene,” Enrile said.
Legarda insisted that the Armed Forces “was not remiss” in its duties in relation to Typhoon Yolanda. Mia Gonzalez.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.