Slow aid response hurting Aquino's image

Two days before one of the world's most powerful typhoons rammed into the Philippines, President Benigno Aquino had a simple but ambitious target for government agencies: zero casualties.

Fast-forward a week: Thousands are dead, anger is growing over the state of the relief effort, and Aquino's once-unassailable popularity is under threat - along with reforms that have helped turn the Philippines into one of Asia's fastest-growing emerging economies.

Aquino is facing a challenge that could undermine his presidency in the wake of Typhoon Haiyan, whose 313 kilometer-per-hour winds and tsunami-like wall of water turned coastal regions into corpse-strewn wastelands.

The 53-year-old heir to a political dynasty appears to have been caught off guard by the devastation and has struggled to quell survivors' growing frustration.

He has appeared only briefly on TV, including once from the city of Tacloban, where he huddled with local officials, and again at the Malacanang presidential palace to announce a national calamity. Other appearances, from both Manila and the affected areas, have been rare.

"He should have grasped the enormity of the crisis," said Ramon Casiple, executive director of the Institute for Political and Electoral Reforms in Manila.

"This could be big. If nothing happens in the next week or so, and the rehabilitation goes haywire, he will have a big political problem."

Aquino spokesman Herminio Coloma defended the president's performance but said criticism of the government was understandable.

The president had avoided visits to the hardest-hit areas so that local government officials were not distracted from relief work, Coloma added.

"We do not deny that there may have been shortcomings, but that is borne out of severe constraints. ... The severity and magnitude of this disaster are unprecedented and unparalleled in our previous experience," he said.

Aquino on Sunday refused to acknowledge reports that the city of 220,000 people had been 95 percent devastated, with looting in some parts, said an official who was there when the president met with local authorities.

He complained that disaster officials were giving him conflicting reports, with no reliable information after the typhoon brought down telephone and power lines, said the source, who declined to be identified so he could speak candidly.

One TV network quoted Aquino as telling the head of the disaster agency that he was running out of patience. Defense Secretary Voltaire Gazmin said Aquino was "discouraged" with the incomplete data he got.

Reuters

(China Daily 11/16/2013 page8)