Philippines
Rain, floods in Philippines leave 32 dead, others missing
Heavy rains and floods that devastated parts of the Philippines over the Christmas weekend have left at least 32 dead and 24 missing, the national disaster response agency said Thursday.
More than 56,000 people were still in emergency shelters after bad weather disrupted Christmas celebrations in the eastern, central and southern Philippines.
Images from the southern province of Misamis Occidental showed rescuers carrying an elderly woman on a plastic chair as they waded through a flooded street. Some residents in the province were seen hanging on to floaters as coast guard rescuers pulled them across chest-deep floods using a rope.
Eighteen of the 32 deaths were reported in the Northern Mindanao region, while 22 of the 24 missing were from Eastern Visayas in the central Philippines and the eastern Bicol region, the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council said.
Most of the deaths were from drowning while among the missing were fishermen whose boats capsized, the agency said.
Read more: Philippine rain, flooding cause at least 25 deaths
Over 4,000 houses were damaged by the floods along with roads and bridges, and some areas were without power or water, the agency reported.
A shear line — the point where warm and cold air meet — triggered rains in parts of the country, the state weather bureau said. It forecast light to heavy rains in the next 24 hours for some of the same areas affected by the floods.
Nearly 100 dead, dozens missing as storm lashes Philippines
Nearly 100 people have died in one of the most destructive storms to lash the Philippines this year with dozens more feared missing in a mudslide-hit mountainside village, while more than a million others were swamped by floodwater in several provinces, officials said Monday.
At least 53 of 98 people who died — mostly in flooding and landslides — were from Maguindanao in the Bangsamoro autonomous region, which was swamped by unusually heavy rains set off by Tropical Storm Nalgae. The storm blew out of the country and into the South China Sea on Sunday, leaving a trail of destruction in a large swath of the archipelago.
A large contingent of rescuers with bulldozers and backhoes resumed retrieval work in southern Kusiong village in the hard-hit province of Maguindanao, where as many as 80 to 100 people, including entire families, are feared to have been buried by a boulder-laden mudslide or swept away by flash floods that started overnight Thursday, said Naguib Sinarimbo, the interior minister for a Muslim autonomous region run by former separatist guerrillas under a peace pact.
The government’s main disaster-response agency also reported 69 people were injured in the onslaught and at least 63 others remain missing.
More than 1 million people were lashed by the storm, including more than 912,000 villagers who fled to evacuation centers or homes of relatives. More than 4,100 houses and 16,260 hectares (40,180 acres) of rice and other crops were damaged by floodwaters at a time when the country was bracing for a looming food crisis because of global supply disruptions, officials said.
Sinarimbo said the official tally of missing people did not include most of those feared missing in the huge mudslide that hit Kusiong because entire families may have been buried and no member was left to provide names and details to authorities.
The catastrophe in Kusiong, populated mostly by the Teduray ethnic minority group, was particularly tragic because its more than 2,000 villagers have carried out disaster-preparedness drills every year for decades to brace for a tsunami because of a deadly history. But they were not as prepared for the dangers that could come from Mount Minandar, where their village lies at the foothills, Sinarimbo said.
“When the people heard the warning bells, they ran up and gathered in a church on a high ground,” Sinarimbo told The Associated Press on Saturday, citing accounts by Kusiong villagers.
“The problem was, it was not a tsunami that inundated them but a big volume of water and mud that came down from the mountain,” he said.
In August 1976, an 8.1-magnitude earthquake and a tsunami in the Moro Gulf that struck around midnight left thousands of people dead and devastated coastal provinces in one of the deadliest natural disasters in Philippine history.
Lying between the Moro Gulf and 446-meter (1,464-foot) Mount Minandar, Kusiong was among the hardest hit by the 1976 catastrophe. The village never forgot the tragedy. Elderly villagers who survived the tsunami and powerful earthquake passed on the nightmarish story to their children, warning them to be prepared.
“Every year, they hold drills to brace for a tsunami. Somebody was assigned to bang the alarm bells and they designated high grounds where people should run to,” Sinarimbo said. “Villagers were even taught the sound of an approaching big wave based on the recollection of the tsunami survivors.”
“But there wasn’t as much focus on the geo-hazards on the mountainside,” he said.
Bulldozers, backhoes and payloaders were brought to Kusiong on Saturday with more than 100 rescuers from the army, police and volunteers from other provinces, but they were unable to dig at a spot where survivors said the church lay underneath because the muddy mound was still dangerously soft, officials said.
The stormy weather in a large swath of the country hindered transportation as millions of Filipinos planned to travel over a long weekend for visits to relatives’ tombs and for family reunions on All Saints’ Day in the largely Roman Catholic nation.
Nearly 200 domestic and international flights were canceled, Manila’s international airport was briefly closed amid stormy weather and voyages in storm-whipped seas were prohibited by the coast guard, stranding thousands of passengers.
Floodwaters swamped many provinces and cities, trapping some people on their roofs. President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. expressed disappointment over the high casualty toll in a televised meeting Saturday with disaster-mitigation officials.
“We should have done better,” Marcos Jr. said. “We were not able to anticipate that the volume of water will be that much so we were not able to warn the people and then to evacuate them out of the way of the incoming flash floods.”
About 20 typhoons and storms batter the Philippine archipelago each year. It is located on the Pacific “Ring of Fire,” a region along most of the Pacific Ocean rim where many volcanic eruptions and earthquakes occur, making the nation one of the world’s most disaster-prone.
5 rescuers dead as powerful typhoon hits north Philippines
Typhoon Noru blew out of the northern Philippines on Monday, leaving five rescuers dead, causing floods and power outages and forcing officials to suspend classes and government work in the capital and outlying provinces.
The most powerful typhoon to hit the country this year slammed into the coast in Burdeos town in Quezon province before nightfall on Sunday then weakened as it barreled overnight across the main Luzon region, where thousands of people were moved to emergency shelters, some forcibly, officials said.
Gov. Daniel Fernando of Bulacan province, north of Manila, said five rescuers, who were using a boat to help residents trapped in floodwaters, were hit by a collapsed wall then apparently drowned in the rampaging waters.
“They were living heroes who were helping save the lives of our countrymen amid this calamity,” Fernando told DZMM radio network. “This is really very sad.”
On Polillo island in northeastern Quezon province, a man was injured after falling off the roof of his house, officials said.
More than 17,000 people were moved to emergency shelters from high-risk communities prone to tidal surges, flooding and landslides in Quezon alone, officials said.
More than 3,000 people were evacuated to safety in Metropolitan Manila, which was lashed by fierce wind and rain overnight. Classes and government work were suspended Monday in the capital and outlying provinces as a precaution although the morning skies were sunny.
The entire northern provinces of Aurora and Nueva Ecija, which were hit by the typhoon, remained without power Monday and repair crews were at work to bring back electricity, Energy Secretary Raphael Lotilla told President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. in a televised meeting he called to assess damages and coordinate disaster-response.
Marcos Jr. praised officials for evacuating thousands of people to safety as a precaution before the typhoon hit which prevented large number of casualties despite the Noru's potentially disastrous force.
Noru underwent an “explosive intensification” over the open Pacific Ocean before it hit the Philippines, Vicente Malano, who heads the country’s weather agency, told The Associated Press on Sunday.
From sustained winds of 85 kilometers per hour (53 mph) on Saturday, Noru was a super typhoon just 24 hours later with sustained winds of 195 kilometers (121 miles per hour) and gusts of up to 240 kph (149 mph) at its peak late Sunday.
By Monday morning, Noru had sustained winds of 140 kph (87 mph) and gusts of 170 kph (105 mph) and was moving westward in the South China Sea at 30 kph (19 mph), according to the weather agency.
About 20 storms and typhoons batter the Philippines each year. The archipelago also lies in the “Pacific Ring of Fire,” a region along most of the Pacific Ocean rim where many volcanic eruptions and earthquakes occur, making the Southeast Asian nation one of the world’s most disaster-prone.
In 2013, Typhoon Haiyan, one of the strongest recorded tropical cyclones in the world, left more than 7,300 people dead or missing, flattened entire villages, swept ships inland and displaced more than 5 million in the central Philippines — well to the south of Noru’s path.
More than 80 people rescued from Philippine ferry fire
Philippine coast guard personnel and volunteers have rescued more than 80 passengers and crew of an inter-island ferry that caught fire as it approached a port south of Manila, prompting many to jump into the water as flames spread fast in windy weather, officials said Saturday.
Only two passengers are unaccounted for and authorities are checking if the two are missing or had been rescued but immediately went home without notifying officials who led the search efforts Friday, the coast guard said. The M/V Asia Philippines was listed as carrying 49 passengers and 38 crewmembers.
The ferry, which came from Calapan city in Oriental Mindoro province, was more than a kilometer (about a mile) away from the Batangas port, when smoke emerged from the second deck followed by flames, according to one of the rescued passengers.
The ferry’s proximity to the port allowed the rapid rescue of the victims even after nightfall by coast guard vessels and nearby ships, motor bancas and tugboats. One ship helped the coast guard extinguish the fire, which gutted the ferry that also carried at least 16 cars and trucks, coast guard officials said.
Passenger Benedict Fernandez told DZMM radio Friday night that smoke and flames suddenly rose from the second deck as crew members were apparently trying to turn an engine on and off as the ferry approached the port. There was no immediate order to abandon ship, but when it became hard to see because of the smoke, he said he decided to jump into the water with his two children from the third deck, along with other passengers.
“I pushed my children off because if we didn’t jump from the top, we would really get burned because the soles of our feet were already feeling the heat,” Fernandez said.
They were rescued from the water by another boat that approached the burning ship and then transferred to a tugboat, which brought them to port, he said.
Pictures released by the coast guard showed its personnel trying to revive a rescued passenger, a 43-year-old woman, at the port before she was taken to a hospital with injuries. Fernandez said he and his two children, who were shaken by the experience, and other passengers were taken to a hotel by officials of the company that owned the ferry.
Read: Philippine ferry carrying 82 people catches fire; 73 rescued
The ferry, which has been towed to an anchorage area, can carry about 400 passengers, the coast guard said, adding an investigation was underway. In the past, there have been instances when ferries carried unlisted passengers in defiance of regulations.
Sea accidents are common in the Philippine archipelago because of frequent storms, badly maintained boats, overcrowding and spotty enforcement of safety regulations, especially in remote provinces.
In December 1987, the ferry Dona Paz sank after colliding with a fuel tanker, killing more than 4,300 people in the world’s worst peacetime maritime disaster.
Philippine ferry carrying 82 people catches fire; 73 rescued
A Philippine ferry carrying 82 passengers and crew caught fire as it was approaching a port south of Manila on Friday, and at least 73 of those aboard have been rescued, including many who jumped into the water, the coast guard and survivors said.
Search and rescue efforts were continuing after nightfall for the passengers and crew of the M/V Asia Philippines, an inter-island cargo and passenger vessel which came from nearby Calapan city in Oriental Mindoro province, the coast guard said.
A 44-year-old woman who was among those rescued was taken to a hospital with unspecified injuries.
Video released by the coast guard showed flames and black smoke billowing from the ferry, which was near other ships more than a kilometer (about a mile) from the Batangas port’s anchorage area, coast guard officials said.
Read: Man opens fire on Philippine campus, killing 3 people
A ship helped coast guard vessels extinguish the fire, they said. The cause of the fire was not immediately clear.
Passenger Benedict Fernandez told DZMM radio that smoke and flames suddenly rose from the second deck as crew members were apparently trying to turn an engine on and off as the ferry approached the port. There was no immediate order to abandon ship, but when it became hard to see because of the smoke, he said he decided to jump into the water with his two children from the third deck, along with other passengers.
“I pushed my children off because if we didn't jump from the top, we would really get burned because the soles of our feet were already feeling the heat,” Fernandez said.
They were rescued from the water by another boat that approached the burning ship and then transferred to a tugboat, which brought them to port, he said.
The ferry, which was carrying 48 passengers, 34 crewmembers and 16 vehicles, can carry about 400 passengers, the coast guard said. In the past, there have been instances when ferries carried unlisted passengers in defiance of regulations.
Sea accidents are common in the Philippine archipelago because of frequent storms, badly maintained boats, overcrowding and spotty enforcement of safety regulations, especially in remote provinces.
In December 1987, the ferry Dona Paz sank after colliding with a fuel tanker, killing more than 4,300 people in the world’s worst peacetime maritime disaster.
Philippines affirms news site shutdown order: Maria Ressa
Filipino journalist and Nobel Peace Prize winner Maria Ressa announced in a speech in Hawaii Tuesday that the Philippine government is affirming a previous order to shut down Rappler, the news website she co-founded, which has gained notoriety for its reporting of President Rodrigo Duterte's bloody crackdown on illegal drugs.
The Philippines' Securities and Exchange Commission affirmed its earlier decision to revoke the certificates of incorporation of Rappler, Ressa said while speaking at the East-West Center in Honolulu.
“Part of the reason I didn’t have much sleep last night is because we essentially got a shutdown order,” Ressa told the audience.
Last year, Ressa became the first Filipino and she and Russian Dmitry Muratov became the first working journalists in more than 80 years to win the Nobel Peace Prize.
She was a featured speaker at this week's East-West Center’s International Media Conference.
The order is dated June 28 and reaffirms the earlier decision to revoke the certificates of incorporation of Rappler Inc. and Rappler Holdings Corp., Rappler said in a statement. “We are entitled to appeal this decision and will do so, especially since the proceedings were highly irregular," the statement said.
Read: Journalist Maria Ressa reflects on Nobel Peace Prize win
“We’re not shutting down,” Ressa said. “Well, I'm not supposed to say that.”
No announcements about the decision appeared on the Philippines Securities and Exchange website before business hours in the Philippines, where it was already Wednesday.
The AP was not able to immediately reach Ressa in Honolulu.
She co-founded Rappler in 2012. The website is one of several news agencies deemed critical of Duterte's policies.
Since taking office in 2016, Duterte has openly lambasted journalists who write unfavorable stories about him. He has particularly bristled at critical coverage of his anti-drug campaign, which has left thousands of mostly poor suspects dead and drawn international condemnation.
President-elect Ferdinand Marcos Jr., and Vice President-elect Sara Duterte — Duterte's daughter — take office Thursday after winning landslide victories in last month's elections.
Ressa was convicted of libel and has remained free on bail while the case is on appeal.
The Philippines' Securities and Exchange Commission revoked Rappler's license over what it ruled was a breach of the ban on foreign ownership and control of media outlets.
Explorers find WWII Navy destroyer, deepest wreck discovered
A U.S. Navy destroyer that engaged a superior Japanese fleet in the largest sea battle of World War II in the Philippines has become the deepest wreck to be discovered, according to explorers.
The USS Samuel B. Roberts, popularly known as the “Sammy B," was identified on Wednesday broken into two pieces on a slope at a depth of 6,985 meters (22,916 feet).
That puts it 426 meters (1,400 feet) deeper than the USS Johnston, the previous deepest wreck discovered last year in the Philippine Sea also by American explorer Victor Vescovo, founder of Dallas-based Caladan Oceanic Expeditions. He announced the latest find together with U.K.-based EYOS Expeditions.
Read:Give us back our moon dust and cockroaches: NASA
“It was an extraordinary honor to locate this incredibly famous ship, and by doing so have the chance to retell her story of heroism and duty to those who may not know of the ship and her crew’s sacrifice," Vescovo, a former Navy commander, said in a statement.
The Sammy B. took part in the Battle off Samar, the final phase of the Battle of Leyte Gulf in October 1944, in which the Imperial Japanese Navy suffered its biggest loss of ships and failed to dislodge the U.S. forces from Leyte, which they invaded earlier as part of the liberation of the Philippines.
According to some records, the destroyer disabled a Japanese heavy cruiser with a torpedo and significantly damaged another. After having spent virtually all its ammunition, she was critically hit by the lead battleship Yamato and sank. Of a 224-man crew, 89 died and 120 were saved, including the captain, Lt. Cmdr. Robert W. Copeland.
According to Samuel J. Cox, a retired admiral and naval historian, Copeland stated there was “no higher honor” then to have led the men who displayed such incredible courage going into battle against overwhelming odds, from which survival could not be expected.
Read:European star survey reveals celestial treasure trove
“This site is a hallowed war grave, and serves to remind all Americans of the great cost born by previous generations for the freedom we take for granted today,” Cox said in a statement.
The explorers said that up until the discovery, the historical records of where the wreck lay were not very accurate. The search involved the use of the deepest side-scan sonar ever installed and operated on a submersible, well beyond the standard commercial limitations of 6,000 meters (19,685 feet), EYOS said.
Duterte's daughter takes oath as Philippine vice president
Sara Duterte, the daughter of the outgoing populist president of the Philippines, took her oath Sunday as vice president following a landslide electoral victory she clinched despite her father’s human rights record that saw thousands of drug suspects gunned down.
The inauguration in their southern hometown of Davao, where she’s the outgoing mayor, comes two weeks before she assumes office on June 30 as specified in the Philippine Constitution. President-elect Ferdinand Marcos Jr., Duterte’s running mate, will take his oath in Manila on June 30.
“I’m not the best or the most intelligent person in the Philippines and the world but nobody can beat the toughness of my heart as a Filipino,” Duterte, who wore a green traditional gown, said in a speech after she took her oath before a Supreme Court associate justice, her hand resting on a Bible held by her mother.
Also read: Philippine volcano makes phreatic eruption anew within one week
“The voice of 32.2 million Filipinos was loud and clear — with the message to serve our motherland,” Duterte said, referring to the votes she got, to an applause from thousands of supporters.
Fondly called by supporters as “Inday Sara,” the mother of three called for national unity and devotion to God and asked Filipinos to emulate the patriotism of the country’s national hero Jose Rizal. She cited longstanding social ills facing Filipino children, including poverty, broken families, illegal drugs, bullying and online misinformation and asked parents to ingrain in them the values of integrity, discipline, respect for others and compassion.
President Rodrigo Duterte, 77, led the VIPs in the heavily guarded ceremony at a public square near city hall in the port city of Davao, where he had also served as a mayor starting in the late 1980s. His family, hailing from a modest middle-class background, built a formidable political dynasty in the restive southern region long troubled by communist and Muslim insurgencies and violent political rivalries.
Duterte’s presidency has been marked by a brutal anti-drugs campaign that has left thousands of mostly petty suspects shot dead by police or vigilantes. The drug killings are being investigated by the International Criminal Court as a possible crime against humanity.
The electoral triumphs of Sara Duterte and Marcos Jr. have alarmed left-wing and human rights groups because of their failure to acknowledge the massive human rights atrocities that took place under their fathers, including late dictator Ferdinand Marcos.
Marcos Jr. and Sara Duterte campaigned on a vague platform of national unity without clearly addressing activists’ calls for them to take steps to prosecute the elder Duterte when he retires from politics.
One of the president’s sons, Sebastian Duterte, will succeed his sister as Davao mayor, and another son, Paolo Duterte, won a seat in the House of Representatives in the May 9 elections. The outgoing president’s late father was a former Davao governor.
Also read:7 die in Philippine ferry fire; over 120 rescued from water
Philippine elections have long been dominated by politicians belonging to the same bloodlines. At least 250 political families have monopolized power across the country, although such dynasties are prohibited under the constitution. Congress — long controlled by members of powerful clans targeted by the constitutional ban — has failed to pass the law needed to define and enforce the provision.
While Sara Duterte, 44, refused calls by her father and supporters to seek the presidency, she has not ruled out a future run. She topped pre-elections surveys for the president last year and won with a huge margin like Marcos Jr.
Aside from the vice president, she has agreed to serve as education secretary, although there were talks that her initial preference was to head the Department of National Defense, a traditional springboard to the presidency.
Still, the education portfolio would provide her first national political platform, especially with plans to resume physical classes soon after the country was hit hard by two years of coronavirus pandemic outbreaks and lockdowns.
She thanked her Davao supporters on Saturday and said she decided to hold her inauguration in one of the country’s most developed cities to show her pride as a southern provincial politician who rose to a top national post.
Duterte finished a medical course and originally wanted to become a doctor but later took up law and was prevailed upon to enter politics starting in 2007, when she was elected as Davao vice mayor and mayor three years later.
In 2011, she drew national attention when she was caught on video punching and assaulting a court sheriff who was helping lead a police demolition of a shanty community despite her plea for a brief deferment. The court official sustained a black eye and face injuries and was taken by her bodyguards to a hospital.
Despite her public feuds with her father, Sara Duterte had her hair shaved a year before the 2016 elections as a show of support for his candidacy.
He won the single six-year mandate by a huge margin on an audacious but failed promise to eradicate illegal drugs and corruption in three to six months and constant public threats to kill drug dealers.
Rescuers search for 8 missing crew members in ship collision in Philippines
Rescuers from the Philippine Coast Guard (PCG) are searching for eight missing crew members of a fishing vessel that sank off Palawan province after colliding with a cargo vessel on Saturday afternoon, a PCG spokesperson said on Sunday.
Commodore Armand Balilo said the collision occurred before 6:00 p.m. local time on Saturday, 26 km northeast of Maracanao Island, and 13 out of the 21 crew had been rescued.
The search and rescue operations were continuing, Balilo said, and the cargo vessel MV Happy Hiro, on its way to the central Philippines, was not damaged and had helped transport the rescued fishers safely.
READ: More than 200 dead after typhoon slams Philippines
The maritime accident happened less than a week after a ferry carrying over 130 passengers and crew caught fire on May 23 while traveling to a town in Quezon province on the main Luzon island, leaving at least seven dead.
Ferry accidents are not rare in the Philippines, an archipelagic country in Southeast Asia.
DCCI urges Philippines to invest in Bangladesh’s healthcare, tourism sectors
Dhaka Chamber of Commerce & Industry (DCCI) has urged the Philippines to invest in Bangladesh’s hospitality, healthcare and tourism sectors.
DCCI leaders said that the Philippines made incredible success in the health and tourism sector, so it can invest in Bangladesh to get long term benefits.
They also proposed setting up of a `Nursing Institute’ in Bangladesh to train up medical professionals and share the experience of the Philippines.
Also read: DCCI president tries to woo Sri Lankan investment, as envoy drops in
DCCI leaders came up with the proposal during a meeting with Ambassador of Philippines in Dhaka Alan L. Deniega on Wednesday. DCCI president Rizwan Rahman led its team.
DCCI Vice President Monowar Hossain, third Secretary and Vice Consul of the Philippines Embassy Christian Hope V. Reyes were also present during the meeting.
In response, Ambassador Alan L. Deniega said after the LDC graduation, Bangladesh may take initiative to hold discussion to sign a free trade agreement (FTA) not only with the Philippines but also with the ASEAN countries to expand its export and trade.
He also said Bangladesh has made tremendous progress in social and economic development in the recent past.
Also read: DCCI urges Rwanda to import more Bangladeshi products
Ambassador Alan said domestic tourism of Bangladesh is quite good and it is growing day by day. But to attract foreign tourists infrastructures development is crucial.
He also opined that direct air connectivity between Dhaka and Manila can play a vital role to expand trade and investment opportunities including tourism between the two countries.
In FY 2020-21 bilateral trade between the two countries was USD $124.24 million, where the import and export of Bangladesh was $49.72 million and $74.52 million respectively.