The Roxas-Romualdez battle of videos

The hot topic among Filipinos at present involves the videos of Interior Secretary Mar Roxas and Tacloban Mayor Alfred Romualdez at a meeting with 30 other national and local officials immediately after Supertyphoon “Yolanda” flattened the city and other communities in Leyte and Samar. There are two videos: the first was shown on YouTube by Romualdez’s camp, and the other, longer one was released by Roxas’ camp.

The first shows Roxas telling Romualdez, “Remember, you are a Romualdez and the President is an Aquino,” and ending with “Bahala na kayo sa sarili nyo (You are on your own).”

Romualdez interprets this as a “threat.” Roxas says the video has been spliced, with parts of what he said removed so that what was left takes his whole statement out of context. His own version is longer because it is complete.

This was how Roxas explained the battle of the videos to journalists at the Kapihan sa Manila at Diamond Hotel last Monday:

It all began when Romualdez said he was at the end of his rope (“Hindi ko na kaya”) and asked that the national government take over. That’s when Roxas told Romualdez to write a letter to that effect. He did not want the national government to be accused of grabbing the reins of the Tacloban government from Romualdez. He did not want the takeover to be politicized.

That’s when he said, “Remember, you are a Romualdez and the President is an Aquino.” Because of that fact, people can mistake the takeover as political vendetta.

As for the statement “Bahala na kayo sa sarili nyo,” what he said was: “Hindi namin kayo iiwanan at bahala na kayo sa sarili nyo (We won’t leave you to be on your own).”

With the removal of important phrases, what was left of his statement gave a different meaning, Roxas said. (As an aside, let me say that Romualdez’s father-in-law, former actor Jose Mari Gonzalez, his wife Cristina’s father, is an electronics expert who helped the commission that investigated the assassination of Ninoy Aquino by making clearer the faint recordings of conversations during the shooting itself.)

As for the much-criticized government relief efforts in Eastern Visayas, Roxas said the government gave all that was humanly possible. In the morning after Yolanda, the Tacloban airstrip was cleaned of debris and soon after C-130 cargo planes landed with supplies, personnel and the heavy equipment needed to make the streets passable. He said the three cargo planes immediately turned around to get more supplies. They made up to five trips a day, he said.

And remember, he added, these planes had to service other islands like Palawan that were also devastated by Yolanda.

Why were they unable to stop the looting? Roxas was asked.

The local police force was decimated, he said. The policemen were victims themselves. But policemen from Metro Manila were immediately flown in and soldiers came overland from Samar.

The looting started soon after the wind died down and people saw that the warehouses, malls, and stores had been blown open, Roxas said. The National Food Authority has three rice warehouses in Tacloban—two near the beach which were both washed out and looted, and one farther inland. Troops were able to protect this third one. At present, there are 3,300 soldiers and 1,700 policemen in Leyte.

Where were they (he and Defense Secretary Volt Gazmin) when Yolanda struck?

“We positioned ourselves in Tacloban the day before the typhoon struck to help the people prepare for it. We were caught by the typhoon in a building. The winds blew in all the glass windows and rain swept in. We took shelter behind concrete pillars.

“When the wind died down, we went outside and saw the devastation. The first thing we did was go to City Hall to establish a command post. But City Hall was damaged and there was no one there. We eventually established a command center at a military command post.

“All communication facilities were down and there was no way to contact the outside world. I was able to call the President with my cell phone only once, in the afternoon.”

One of the priorities besides helping the typhoon survivors was to restore communications and call for help, Roxas said. And help was not long in coming. The Department of Social Welfare and Development flew in food packs. “But of course they were not enough. The capacity of the cargo planes was limited. Relief supplies prepositioned by the local government were washed out by the storm surge,” he said.

Roxas attributed the high casualty rate in Tacloban to lack of preparation. Most of the victims were caught by the storm surge. Much of the city is a flat plain, and the water surged inland, wrecking houses and buildings. When it receded, it carried with it people, debris, and even vehicles. The people did not realize how powerful a storm surge is. They did not realize that it is as powerful and deadly as a tsunami. But Pagasa did not want to call it a tsunami because a tsunami is caused by an undersea earthquake whereas a storm surge is caused by strong winds blowing the sea toward shore.

By comparison, nearby Guiuan in Samar, which is also located beside the sea like Tacloban, had fewer casualties. When Roxas asked about this, the mayor of Guiuan said his constituents evacuated far inland, up on the hills. On the other hand, even the family of Tacloban Mayor Romualdez was caught near the airport, beside the sea. This shows how the people of Tacloban did not realize the strength of the typhoon and the storm surge. This can be explained by the fact that Leyte is located in the typhoon belt and experiences typhoons several times a year, so that the people were no longer afraid of typhoons. Now they know better.