TACLOBAN CITY-Residents of Costa Brava in Barangay 88, San Jose district, this city, conducted an evacuation drill Saturday (July 28) as part of their activity relative to the observance of the National Disaster Resilience this month.
Costa Brava, including other villages in San Jose district, was among the most heavily damaged area when Tacloban City was pummeled by super typhoon ‘Yolanda’ on November 8,2013.
During the drill, about 150 residents of the village were ‘evacuated’ to San Jose Elementary School, about 700 meters away from the village, as the identified evacuation center.
Leading the drill were members of the RE-SERVE Humanitarian Corps, a volunteer group composed of responders from various local government units, humanitarian organizations, community groups, and students.
The corps are trained to provide solar power to humanitarian and emergency responders.
“We need accessible energy sources in times of disasters. This is why we volunteered to join the RE-Serve Humanitarian Corps and trained to help provide solar power not only to our communities but to others in need,” RE-Serve spokesperson Janice Bertulfo said.
This is the first time for the corps to conduct a community drill of this scale here in Tacloban City, and they hope to extend their work in other parts of the region, she said.
Their skills in operating a drone, satellite phones and other response tools were also tested, she added.
The City Disaster Risk and Reduction and Management Office (CDRRMO) of Tacloban also witnessed the drill in a bid to institutionalize this response mechanism into their CDRRM plan, particularly in addressing energy needs during disaster.
Brgy. 88 chairwoman Emelita Montalban said that the drill was timely especially as survivors of Yolanda, they have to be reminded of the things to do in case another typhoon hit their area.
(LIZBETH ANN A. ABELLA)

TACLOBAN City, Leyte, July 27 (PIA) — Admitting he is more on personnel and operational management than a clinician, Doctor Salvador Evardone assumed recently as the 10th hospital chief of the Eastern Visayas Regional Medical Center (EVRMC) since”Yolanda”.
Prior to this, he was the chief of the Eastern Samar Provincial Hospital (ESPH) for 14 years, which gave him a rich experience in running a government health facility.
Back there, he paid attention and resolved staffing and personnel issues.
One ESPH staff who requested anonymity said, as a health leader Evardone is diplomatic not dominant with what he wants to implement. Whenever possible, he agrees on personal limitations of people and of available resources.
Evardone believes that for personnel to better perform, their needs have to be satisfied because they are the ones who translate strategies to action.
At EVRMC before his official assumption on August 2, he said he has heard of a few complaints of patients or their families but this is normal, he said.
Not to be discounted are complains in the recent past of arrogant health personnel, of which Dr. Avito Salinas, Deputy Chief acknowledged.
On the same note however, did Salinas appeal to the public to think of the majority of nurses, doctors and attendants who give better attention and services.
“EVRMC has about 2,400 personnel and the fault of one or two should not be branded for the entire working force, that is unfair,” Dr. Salinas said.
He was seconded by Dr. Evardone who requested media to validate any perceived misconduct of personnel, to validate the info with management.
On the operations side, Dr. Evardone stressed that he will be consultative with other members of top level management, continue the good practices and improve other service delivery if need be.
What is most challenging to EVRMC is the unfinished work of JD Legaspi Contractor.
“We’ve sent demand letters to JD Legaspi Construction in Manila for several months now, but we have yet to receive a reply or better yet to complete Phase-1 building of Cabalawan EVRMC,” Dr. Salinas shared.
Part of the construction, he added, is the provision of a transformer so they can start using their CT Scan machine.
“With our fluctuating electric current, we cannot start using the P100M worth CT Scan machine without the heavy duty transformer, otherwise it will destroyed instantly.
EVRMC also needs the help of DPWH08 to finish the road construction fronting the building and the Tacloban City LGU to control the increasing number of illegal stores which is believed to hamper the traffic flow.
Dr. Evardone and Dr. Salinas are highly hopeful that the Master Plan in making EVRMC an Apex health facility will soon be realized so people in the region will no longer have to go to Manila or Cebu for treatment of serious ailments.
(G.Tabao/PIA Leyte)

BURAUEN, Leyte- The Cadahunan Elementary School (CES) of Burauen North District, this town, is one of the recipients of School-Based Feeding Program of the Department of Education (DepEd).
The beneficiaries are all the undernourished children in the school based on the nutritional assessment conducted at the beginning of the school year.
It aims to improve the daily attendance, performance and nutritional status of learners from Kindergarten to Grade 6.
About 23 students of CES were identified as beneficiaries of this program which was implemented this month and is to end by August of this year.
Each beneficiary is given P18.00 per meal for 120 feeding days including the operational expenses.
The target beneficiaries are to take deworming medicine and vitamins with the consent of the parents.
The school, together with the stakeholders, are encourage to have Gulayan sa Paaralan Program and backyard vegetable gardening to augment the feeding program.
This program also promotes health and nutrition information and awareness among the target beneficiaries.
They will conduct hand washing and tooth brushing every day before and after the feeding.
The parents of the identified beneficiaries will prepare the menu every day with the supervision of the school feeding coordinator Florencia C. Arellano and to be monitored by the school head Lisa D. Superales.
It is very important that the school have this school-based feeding program, because most of the children go to school with empty stomach due to poverty.
And most of the pupils fond of making absences because of hunger. It affects the academic performance of the learners.
Through this program, it will reduce hunger, improve the nutritional status, health condition and academic performance of the learners.
(NOTE: Lisa D. Superales is the school head of Cadahunan Elementary School, Burauen North District, Burauen, Leyte)

TACLOBAN CITY- At least 5,148 workers in Eastern Visayas have been regularized from January to the first week of July year as the national government stepped up its drive to end labor-only contracting or “endo”, the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) here reported Friday.
Of the number, 2,594 benefitted from the campaign when their employers voluntarily complied with the directive to stop endo, while the remaining 2,554 workers attained regular employment status after labor inspection activities.
DOLE 8 (Eastern Visayas) Director Cyril Ticao has expressed confidence about hitting the target of 9,000 regularized before the end of this year.
“President Rodrigo Duterte’s call to Congress to pass legislation ending the practice of illegal contractualization is a big boost to our goal to meet or even exceed the target this year,” Ticao told the Philippine New Agency (PNA).
The Chief Executive, in his State of the Nation Address on Monday, asked lawmakers to pass legislation that will “once and for all” stop illegal contractualization.
Contributing to the remarkable performance in the region is the regularization of more than a thousand of these workers, who were given permanent employment status by the Philippine Associated Smelting and Refining Corp., the country’s largest copper smelter based in Isabel, Leyte.
The priority in the campaign are shopping malls, hotels, restaurants, food chains, gas stations, manufacturing, construction, transport, and fishing industry since these are the establishments vulnerable to labor-only contracting.
The regional office is largely counting on voluntary compliance since it only has 20 labor inspectors tasked to check the compliance of thousands of business establishments in the region’s six provinces.
The DOLE adopted two tracks in eliminating labor-only contracting or endo.
In the first track, its regional offices conduct a series of consultations and meetings to encourage employers to voluntarily regularize workers.
For the second track, labor law compliance officers inspect establishments, principals and contractors practicing labor-only contracting arrangements.
Those found to be engaged in labor-only contracting are subjected to mandatory conferences to assist them in their compliance with labor standards.
In 2017, about 1,733 workers were given regular employment status in the six provinces of Eastern Visayas.
(SARWELL Q.MENIANO/PNA)

TACLOBAN CITY–At least 136 out of 138 barangay chairmen and Sangguniang Kabataan (SK) leaders here in the city attended a special gathering Sunday (July 29) in a show of support and alliance to Tingog Sinirangan, a party-list group based in the region.
While Tingog Sinirangan regional chairman and first nominee Jude Acidre thanked the recently elected barangay and SK chairmen during the gathering, they assured them of their continued support through their priority projects and programs.
“We believe that in party-list, the party should be remembered and not the individual personalities. Tingog Sinirangan is more than its nominees,” said Acidre as he disclosed the various medical programs and initiatives they conducted around the region despite not winning the position during their first attempt in the 2016 national elections.
In a speech, Acidre thanked Tacloban for giving them over 40,000 votes, which pushed the Tingog Sinirangan into an “advantageous position” among hundreds of party-list groups.
“Tacloban did not also disappoint us for giving us the biggest margin of votes. If Tacloban wasn’t there, we’ll not make it there, too. Maybe it’s not yet our time, but we’re not tired,” said Acidre, adding that they continue to serve the city and Eastern Visayas to “return the favor” that they received from their supporters during the 2016 national elections.
“Whether we have a position or not, we remember Tacloban. We’re here to give you service,” said Acidre as he called the barangay and youth leaders as their “partners.”
According to Acidre, Tingog Sinirangan will be the second “voice” to the congressional districts in the region.
For the past three years, Tingog Sinirangan already conducted over 40 medical program services around Eastern Visayas. Its latest is the free check-up and cataract operation they started in July until August.
Although a newcomer in the national party-list elections, Tingog Sinirangan has been in existent since 2012.
Lawyer Butch Corpin, its second nominee and the current executive director of Lakas-CMD party, said that Tingog Sinirangan was formerly called as Tingog Leytenhons, a provincial political party in Leyte.
Former congressman Ferdinand Martin Romualdez, its chairman emeritus, pushed for its entry in the regional level to give “voice” to the region’s people along with bringing in the development of the regional countryside, and representation in the House of Congress through the party-list system.
The Commission of Elections accredited Tingog Sinirangan through a resolution promulgated on Aug. 19, 2015, which qualified the party to run in the party-list elections in May 2016 national and local elections.
Acidre has been in a region-based party-list organization for over 10 years.
Meanwhile, Leyte First District Rep. Yedda Romualdez, who accompanied Acidre during the event, said they are “pushing for more projects and we’re doing many things.”
She highlighted the ongoing tide embankment, by-pass road and bridge projects in Tacloban City and Leyte province.
Romualdez assured many more projects will happen in the City and in her district, saying that Pres. Rodrigo Duterte and the new House Speaker Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo are “very kind and close to us.”
Newly-elected Association of Barangay Chairmen (ABC) president Eden Chua-Pineda and Sangguniang Kabataan Federation president Thomas Diaz lauded Romualdez and Tingog Sinirangan for responding to the needs in the barangays in the city.
Now on her second year in Congress, Romualdez was instrumental in the passage of 13 laws and 23 other legislative measures now on its third reading, making her as one of the hardworking representatives in the 17th Congress. (RONALD O. REYES)

Four of them minors

BY: JOEY A. GABIETA/ROEL T. AMAZONA

TACLOBAN CITY- At least 32 men, four of them minors, from this city said to be victims of trafficking were rescued by authorities in Sual, Pangasinan province.
The trafficked victims were recruited to work in a big fish cage farm reportedly owned by Chinese nationals and were promised of a monthly compensation of P5,000.
But based on the accounts of the victims, they were told that they would only be paid P3,500, worked overtime under harsh condition and always being threatened.
“Yohan,’ 15, and from Barangay 96, said that he together with his companions were recruited by a neighbor identified as Eduard Moreno on July 11 of this year.
“I don’t really know him though we belong to the same village. He promised us that we will be paid P5,000 and with food allowance and with a decent living quarters,” the victim said.
But when they arrived in the area on July 13 after almost two days of land travel, they were shocked that their living quarters were just like pig pens; worked from 4 am until 10 pm every day of the week and with no rest allowed.
They were also provided with their daily food, placed in a plastic wrapper.
“We always ate fish and vegetables with foul-odor smell,” Yohan said.
About seven armed men were said to be monitoring them.
Yohan, who only finished Grade 4 whose parents have no stable employment, said that he was glad that his and his companions’ nightmarish ordeals are over.
“At least I am with my parents and younger sibling now. I will just continue my studies here with the help of our government,” he said.
The other victims were recruited by Moreno’s brother, Dick, who is based in Sual.
The plight of the victims were discovered when one of the mothers of the trafficked victims went to the office of the City Social Welfare and Development Office(CSWDO) complaining that her 15-year old boy has not contacted her since he left for Sual on July 11.
Carmela Bastes, social worker of the CSWDO, immediately informed their regional office in Tacloban City which, in turn, contacted their counterparts in Pangasinan on July 13.
And on July 19, with the help of the National Bureau of Investigation in Pangasinan, personnel from the DSWD-Pangasinan, went to the area and conducted their rescue operation.
The Chinese owners did not resist during the operation.
Claire Banzuela, social worker officer based in San Fernando, Pangasinan, said that their office provided food and clothing to the victims and were given P5,000 as assistance.
Banzuela, together with other staff of their office, escorted the trafficked victims to the city on July 24.
The NBI, she said, are to file cases of human trafficking against the Chinese nationals and the recruiters of the victims.
The city government of Tacloban initiated press conference on Thursday (July 26) with the victims as well as social welfare officers from Tacloban and Pangasinan in attendance.