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PRESS RELEASE
Information Bureau
Communist Party of the Philippines

NPA, revolutionary forces doing utmost to help victims of Typhoon Reming--CPP

December 3, 2006

The Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) today expressed deep sympathy with the hundreds of thousands of victims of the recent Typhoon Reming, even as it called for the massive mobilization of the New People's Army (NPA) as well as other revolutionary forces and organizations in order to to carry out relief and rehabilation work among the victimized people of Albay, Masbate, Catanduanes, Camarines Sur, Camarines Norte, Quezon and other areas devastated by the typhoon. The CPP also appealed for international support in the relief and rehabilitation of the affected areas.

CPP spokesperson Gregorio "Ka Roger" Rosal said Red fighters of the New People's Army and contingents of revolutionary mass organizations in the affected and nearby areas have been asked to give priority to mass mobilizations in order to organize, assist and coordinate relief efforts, and to ensure that food and other assistance will go to the intended victims.

Rosal said the NPA and revolutionary forces are ready to coordinate efforts with people's organizations, medical groups and other assisting institutions as well as local and international relief agencies such as the International Committee of the Red Cross.

Rosal also advised organizations and the people as well as the governments of other countries and international agencies contributing material assistance to course their assistance through non-government volunteer organizations in order to avoid pilferage and diversion of relief goods passing through bureaucratic and military channels. Rosal recalled that, when mass evacuations were conducted in areas around Mt. Mayon in the height of its volcanic activity several months ago, more than half of the canned meat loaves and other canned goods intended for evacuees and coursed through these channels were "lost and unaccounted for" along the way.

As many as 700 people are feared dead or missing as Typhoon Reming ravaged several provinces in Southern Luzon. More than 30,000 families have been displaced, counting only those from six of 35 towns of Camarines Sur hard hit by the typhoon. Rains brought by the typhoon caused lahar slides from Mayon Volcano engulfing and wiping out several baranggays.

Rosal severely criticized the Arroyo government, concerned government agencies and local authorities for failing to take measures to immediately alert and evacuate residents despite earlier warnings of the big possibility of lahar slides in areas around Mayon. National authorities have been fully aware that the build-up of volcanic debris along the slopes of Mayon, since the height of its volcanic activity the past several months, was a disaster waiting to happen.

Rosal pointed out that the great majority of the typhoon and lahar slide victims are poor peasants whose conditions have even been made worse by the disaster. Relatedly, the International Red Cross (IRC) said in its "2005 Disaster Report" that the impact of natural disasters "aggravate pre-existing poverty, creating a downward spiral of vulnerability, arresting development." The IRC noted that some 6 million Filipinos, mostly the poorest, have suffered death, injury, and loss of livelihood, homes and property because of natural and manmade calamities in the decade since the early '90s.

The CPP spokesperson, continued: "It is the poor and exploited peasants who have always principally suffered the brunt of natural and man-made disasters," recalling the St. Bernard Tragedy in Leyte in February 2006, the December 2004 Quezon mudflows, the December 2003 floods in Southern Leyte and Caraga Region in Mindanao and the Ormoc Tragedy of 1991.

"The people's poverty makes them extremely vulnerable to disasters and ever strike of disaster exacerbates all the more their poverty and sufferings," said Rosal. "All this is rooted in the rotten, reactionary and antipeople rule under a backward, exploitative, oppressive and antipeople socio-economic and political system that has long prevailed in the country and has been causing all this detriment to the mass of the Filipino people."

Reference:
Marco Valbuena
Media Officer
Cellphone Numbers: 09179776392 :: 09282242061
E-mail:cppmedia@gmail.com