Long lines at Palace ‘relief’ center irks Arroyo

MANILA, Philippines -- President Macapagal-Arroyo didn’t like what she saw on the first day of her unprecedented order to open Malacañang to common folks: a long stretch of poor villagers peeking through the gates of the Kalayaan compound under the intense mid-afternoon heat.

That was apparently the closest they could get to the National Relief Operations Center set up at the Palace grounds to help victims of typhoon Ondoy—until Ms Arroyo got visibly irked.

Such was the sight that greeted Ms Arroyo when she arrived at the Kalayaan Hall at around 1:30 p.m. from a Cabinet meeting in Camp Aguinaldo. Her face turning sour, she immediately ordered Palace guards to let the villagers in.

Hermogenes Esperon, presidential chief of staff, sought to downplay Ms Arroyo’s subdued annoyance, saying “she just didn’t want to see the people lined up outside.”

About an hour later, the number of people expecting relief goods would swell to around 500. Many of them were women and kids coming in slippers and tattered clothes.

An old man on a wheelchair fell in line, at the end of which volunteers were distributing only hamburger buns.

Esperon said there was an apparent miscommunication: Malacañang was not supposed to be an evacuation center as had been announced Monday.

“This is a repacking center, meaning we will receive donations, repack them, then send them to evacuation centers where the flood victims are,” he told the Philippine Daily Inquirer. “If they want to receive relief goods, they should go to the evacuation centers.”

But no less than Executive Secretary Eduardo Ermita had announced that offices at the Kalayaan buildings could be used to temporarily house flood victims.

To avoid disappointing the villagers, many of whom were from neighboring communities just outside Malacañang, volunteers handed out pieces of bread and softdrinks. By 3:30 p.m., most of them were filing out of Kalayaan.

The supposed miscommunication aside, Malacañang promised more assistance for families affected by the storm.

Ms Arroyo, Vice President Noli de Castro, and members of the Cabinet promised to donate their two-months’ salary for the victims. There are 23 active members of the Cabinet.

She also ordered an early release of the 13-month pay of government employees not spared by intense flooding over the weekend.

The President earns at least P69,916 monthly, the Vice President P55,916, and Cabinet secretaries P48,916, according to Budget Secretary Rolando Andaya.

Ms Arroyo also appealed to car repair shops not to “take advantage of the situation and give a good price rather than higher prices” for motorists, whose vehicles had bogged down in heavy floodwaters.

In a late afternoon statement, Ms Arroyo expressed dismay over criticisms regarding the government’s purportedly slow and inadequate response to flood victims.

“The disaster work we do is critical, but often other people have a wrong understanding,” she said.

As of Tuesday afternoon, the Palace relief operations center had distributed donation packs to 273,453 victims in Metro Manila.