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Tuesday, December 28, 2004
Labor dep't: No Pinoy victims in Asia tsunami onslaught
MANILA -- The Department of Labor and Employment (Dole) on Monday assured that there were no Filipinos among the victims of the series of tsunamis that struck South Asian countries surrounding the Indian Ocean last Sunday.
However, President Arroyo said she would send a small contingent to the countries affected by the tsunami to help in the rescue operations, attend to the wounded and help uplift the affected communities.
A tsunami is a great sea wave produced by underwater earth movement or volcanic eruption.
A series of gigantic waves rolled over the coasts of the countries of Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia, Bangladesh, India and Sri Lanka, killing an estimated 20,000 people.
The tsunamis followed a 9.0-magnitude undersea earthquake off the coast of Sumatra, Indonesia.
Arroyo, in a press conference in Baguio City, also sent her deepest sympathy "to the families of those who perished in the wave of tsunamis."
"Our government shall send a small humanitarian contingent to where it is most needed. Other nations extended a helping hand to us in the recent calamity and we shall reach out to help others in the best way we can. Global compassion is needed to lift the victims from pain and despair," she said.
Track down
Labor Secretary Patricia Sto. Tomas said she has instructed the Overseas Workers Welfare Administration (Owwa) to put up an operations center to track down if there were overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) affected.
"So far there was no report of Filipino casualties but Owwa has put up an operation center to track down our OFWs," she said.
While she is not discounting the possibility that some OFWs could be among the victims of the recent calamities, Sto. Tomas said the Filipino workers could be "irregular."
She said Filipinos could enter the affected countries without any visa, therefore tracking them down would be difficult because "they did not pass through the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA)."
Except for Malaysia, Sto. Tomas said there are an estimated 50,000 OFWs in the three of the five affected countries.
Sto. Tomas said the POEA is currently checking their database to determine how many OFWs were processed and deployed to India, Indonesia and Sri Lanka.
"We are coordinating with our embassies there and POEA is checking their data base," Sto. Tomas said.
POEA records showed that there are about 1,534 Filipinos deployed to Indonesia; 408 to India and 309 in Sri Lanka in 2003.
The President directed the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) to continue monitoring and checking with its counterpart in the affected countries to determine if there are Filipinos among the casualties.
She also ordered the DFA to undertake the necessary and appropriate actions to help the affected Filipinos, if any.
Arroyo said the latest calamity stressed the need for disaster preparedness at all times and at all levels of governance and community participation.
Not near enough
Meanwhile, the Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology (Phivolcs) said Monday the epicenter of earthquake that triggered the tsunami in Southeast Asia is far from the Philippines.
Romy Tabanlar of Phivolcs said that because of the great distance, there is no possibility that the tsunami would affect the country.
Other earthquake experts said some countries like Indonesia and Malaysia have served as blockade for the tidal waves to enter Philippine territory.
Tabanlar said although an earthquake of intensity 3 in magnitude was recorded in Davao, as of 4:00 a.m., it was not the effect of the intensity 9 temblor offshore of Sumatra and Indonesia that occurred last Sunday.
He pointed out that the seabed where the earthquake of tectonic origin took place is too shallow, only about 10 kilometers, so it triggered the tsunami.
But he admitted that the tectonic-plates, or slab of rocks that moved was as wide as the Philippine area so it affected several countries.
Tabanlar said there are some temblors that would not unleash tsunami because they are of lower magnitude or they occur in deeper oceans.
Asked as to the possibility that the country would experience being hit by tidal waves, he said there was an incident in 1976 when a tsunami hit Mindanao, particularly in Cotabato, Jolo and Zamboanga where about 6,000 individuals died.
He further disclosed that the withdrawal of the tidal wave to the sea is more disastrous.
"The great impact on the splashing of the wave will destroy the structures but it will uproot and pull them when it returned to the sea," the Phivolcs official said. (Sunnex Luzon/Sun.Star Pangasinan)
(December 28, 2004 issue)
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