BORONGAN CITY, Eastern Samar, Philippines - Municipal mayors of four flood-affected municipalities in Eastern Samar have sent out an urgent appeal for help from the national government through President Benigno Simeon Aquino III to prevent the possible starvation of thousands of their constituents who lost houses and other properties to floods from heavy, continuous rains earlier this month. Mayor Emiliana P. Villacarillo of the worst hit town of Dolores, Eastern Samar said urgent aid is needed from the national government in rehabilitating in the soonest time possible damaged infrastructure facilities and her constituents' inundated rice farms. Villacarillo said the local government unit (LGU) has run out of calamity funds and the people in Dolores "now face possible famine and starvation as their rice farms have been wiped out by floods." She said they had expected the President to come and see for himself the damage in Eastern Samar when he flew out to inspect flood-hit areas in the region but were "very disappointed" when he only visited St. Bernard town in Southern Leyte. "Thousands of Eastern Samareños also needs immediate attention," she stressed. In contrast, she said, when Dolores was also struck by floods three years ago, former President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo came to personally visited the town to distribute relief assistance. Aside from food assistance, she said the town's residents also need assistance to repair damaged roads and other public facilities washed out by the flood. Villacarillo, along with Mayors Rodulfo Evardone of Arteche, Jaime Ty of MacArthur and Nena Gabornes of Lawaan, has flown to Manila to make a personal appeal to President Aquino, and Eastern Samar Representative Ben P. Evardone for assistance.
Mayor Evardone said 1,300 families from the nine barangays of Arteche, an interior town in Eastern Samar, suffered losses in crops and personal belongings from the floods. "As a small town, we only have a small calamity fund which is not enough to rehabilitate, for instance, damaged roads connecting the barangays to the outside world," said the Arteche mayor. "Rehabilitation of the damaged roads and rice farms are our number one problem, along with the lack of food supplies." Mayors Gabornes and Ty said their rice farmers need palay seeds for them to replant their damaged rice farms. Ty said all 18 barangays located in interior MacArthur town were badly affected by floods. Last week, thousands of flood victims in Eastern Samar received relief goods from the Eastern Samar solon, Evardone but the mayors were one in saying that these were hardly enough for everyone in need of help as a result of the floods brought about by continuous heavy rains that fell on Eastern Samar since December last year. Rep. Evardone said he distributed over the weekend relief goods to flood victims in Borongan, and the towns of Quinapondan, Can-Avid, Dolores, San Policarpo, Balangkayan, Sulat, Maslog and Jipapad to alleviate the lack of food and medical needs. Some 21,170 flood victims from these towns have been affected by the floods.
