TACLOBAN CITY – About 30,000 people from various parts of Leyte benefitted the medical services offered by the Korean Joint Support Group since they arrived in the province to help typhoon stricken victims.
The Korean group, also known as the Araw Contingent, was among the first foreign groups that provided assistance to the people of Leyte which bore the brunt of supertyphoon Yolanda’s wrath on November 8, 2013.
They started their operations and medical missions December last year and continue to provide free services to the people of Tacloban City, Tolosa, Tanauan, Dulag and Palo where the group put up a camp base located at the Government Center of said town.

The group conducts their free medical services inside their base camp every Wednesday, Friday and Saturday with the rest of the days to the various villages. Services offered in the medical missions include dental, orthopedic, internal medicine and surgical as well as accommodate 200 general medical and 20 dental patients per day. Patients normally queue in the outpatient department to see the nursing officers and doctors for examination and medication, after which, they proceed to the pharmacy to avail of free medicines.
Imelda Palaña was identified to be the 30,000th patient of the Araw medical mission who expressed her gratitude to the Korean forces.
“I never expected that I will be the 30,000th patient and I am so blessed because I also received boxes of gifts aside from the free medicines I had. I thank them wholeheartedly,” said Palaña.
She received gifts from the Korean group consisting of foods and relief goods.

Meanwhile, Private First Class Kim Jinhyuk revealed that their reason in coming here was not only to aid the victims but also to repay what the Filipino soldiers did during the Korean War.
“It has been a great opportunity to come here, we are not just here to help but also to repay the sacrifices you made during the 1950’s Korean war,” Kim expressed.
The Araw forces will carry on their operations and medical missions until they return to their country. They are scheduled to leave by December this year. (SHAIRA VALENZONA, LNU Intern)

TACLOBAN CITY – Eastern Visayas is bound to lose 1,183 daily tourists or 106,470 from September to December due to limited air travel operation at the Daniel Z. Romualdez (DZR) Airport.  With this situation, the regional office of the Department of Tourism admitted that they could not possibly reach their target of tourist arrivals at more than 769,000 for this year.  “The DZR Airport serves as the gateway. With the limited operations of the airport, we are also faced with limited air seats for incoming and outgoing passengers,” said DOT Regional Director Karina Rosa Tiopes.  “Limited flights and schedules also make travel to the region inconvenient to both visitors and the travelling public,” she added. Before the runway problem, Tiopes recalled that the Tacloban airport had nine flights per day with an average airline seats per plane of about 70. “That means we lost 79% of our airline seat capacity,” she said. Based on their tourist target for this year, 2,109 tourists are to arrive a day in the region using the DZR Airport. Assuming that 80% or 1,687 visitors arrival via Tacloban Airport, the region will have a significant gap between visitor air seat demand and supply, Tiopes said.

 “Presuming that of the 630 passengers from nine flights per day, 80% or 504 of them are visitors, then we are losing about 1,183 tourists per day,” she observed. For 60-room Hotel Alejandro, the situation since early September has been unusual. “Our occupancy rate since September 4 was just 70% to 80%. Prior to airport problem, we have been fully booked. We lost walk-in clients due to flight cancellations,” said Nellie Abiertas, front desk officer of Hotel Alejandro.  The airport was shutdown on September 3 for emergency patching of large pothole, as recommended by airline companies. After 24 hours, the runway has reopened, but only for propeller driven aircraft to give way to long term repair.

The situation prompted airline companies to cancel flights to DZR Airport. Only the Manila-bound Philippine Airlines turboprop planes and Cebu-bound Cebu Pacific’s small aircraft use the airport. The DZR Airport has 2,100-meter runway. Unlike Airbuses, smaller aircrafts can only use half of the runway, paving the way for the massive rehabilitation of runway’s asphalt overlay. Civil Aviation Authority of the Philippines (CAAP) Tacloban area manager Efren Nagrama said that massive runway rehabilitation works may end early December. The DZR Airport is one of the country’s busiest airports in the country, catering 611,397 inbound and outbound travellers from January to July 2014. The CAAP office has no available comparable 2013 data since all records were swept away by big waves. Tiopes, on the other hand, said that the limited operation will contribute to sustainable tourism growth in the future as it will ensure “long term safety.” “If we were to weigh the effect of having an airport with limited operations versus ensuring the safety of passengers and the integrity of the aircraft, latter takes precedence. We just have to bear the short term inconvenience,” she added. Eastern Visayas is targeting an 8.5% growth this year from the 709,498 arrival in 2013. (SARWELL Q.MENIANO)