Of following orders and understanding 'em

 It is only natural for people to want to protect their hard-earned properties.

I DO NOT want to be a wet blanket—pardon the pun—especially since this city's Disaster Risk Reduction Management Council (CDRRMC) has already celebrated its “zero-casualty” feat¹ in responding to super typhoon 'Pablo' (International code name: Bopha) that pummeled Cagayan de Oro and other parts of the island, last week.

Even if the “zero-casualty” claim has raised some, if not many, eyebrows, I still say City Hall has done quite a feat as compared to its response—or the lack of it—when tropical storm Sendong (International code name: Washi) flooded this city and claimed some 600 lives and destroyed at least hundreds of millions of infrastructure, properties and agricultural production.

While City Hall sycophants are busy patting each others back for a job well done, there is something we should reexamine if only to further improve our city's disaster response in future calamities—natural and man-made.

Let us take a closer look at the supposed forced evacuation order of Mayor Vicente “Dongkoy” Emano at the height of 'Pablo,' ang how the Cagayan de Oro City Police Office (Cocpo) implemented the order.

Under the Disaster Risk Reduction Management Law (RA 10121), the local chief executive can exercise its police powers to order a forced evacuation in areas where widespread danger is imminent, of which Emano did on December 4 shortly after raising the alert level to code red. The city then, has been included in the list of areas under storm signal number 3.

I, personally, was sort of excited to see this order in action because one, it was going to be my first time to see a forced evacuation implemented and I only see this in the movies and news coverages on calamities elsewhere in the country.

That day, together with international news wires photojournalists—Froilan Gallardo (Associated Press), JB Deveza (Agence France Presse) and Cai Panlilio (Thomson Reuters)—we visited Sitio Tambo, a community of shacks beside Cagayan River and were surprised to see people, albeit only adult men, still in their shacks.

“We have already evacuated my wife and four daughters to an evacuation center in Zone 8 last Monday afternoon. But we opted to stay behind because we are afraid our homes would be looted. Just last night (December 3), we spied and prevented some people trying to get into the houses of our neighbors,” Felix Araneta, married, 39 years old said when I asked him why he was still in his home despite the code red alert of CDRRMC.

However, when a SWAT (Special Weapons And Tactics) patrol car entered the community, that day, the five police officers appeared clueless as to the mechanics of the order.

I approached one of the officers and asked him if they were in the area to implement the mayor's force evacuation order in the community and how they intend to do it. The officer replied they were indeed in the community to effect the mayor's order. However, it was clear in his reply that they did not understand what forced evacuation is.

“We will go around the community to persuade the people to evacuate their homes but if they insist on staying, we cannot really force them to,” the officer said.

ABS-CBN TVPatrol Northern Mindanao anchor Primy Cane, Philippine Daily Inquirer correspondent Bobby Lagsa and other local reporters experience quite the same disappointment in Sitio Tibasak, Barangay Macasandig that same day^.2

Acting city police director Senior Superintendent Antonio Montalba, who arrived in Tibasak two hours late after Emano issued the force evacuation order, told reporters that—he said they were late because they were still having breakfast—they waited for CDRRMC assistant officer Engr. Armen Cuenca to go with them in implementing the order.

Just in case there will be cases filed against them for implementing a direct order of the city mayor, he reasoned to the flabbergasted reporters. Anyway, most of the people in the geohazard areas have already voluntarily evacuated their homes days before, Montalba reportedly added.

Lagsa—in a Facebook thread—quoted Montalba as saying, “wala na lang nako pugsa pud kay gabii na og gusto nako matulog (I did not force the people who stayed behind because the night was drawing near and I wanted to get some sleep),” in the CDRRMC Exit Conference on Wednesday (December 5).

It is only natural for people to want to protect their hard-earned properties. Ergo, for force evacuation to be effective, the people need to be reassured that even if they leave their houses, their properties will be safe from looting.

We can see force evacuation effectively implemented in the Bicol region whenever Mt. Mayon threatens to unleash its wrath. Truck loads of government security forces would go to geohazard areas and physically taken out of harm's way. These security forces stay behind and search every house in the community to make sure every one has been evacuated.

While the people are being transported to the evacuation centers, they could see that the security forces stayed behind to guard their homes from possible looters.

Had Montalba understood his orders, the force evacuation would have been implemented effectively. Ergo, properly implementing the “risk reduction” concept of RA 10121.

Pablo would have been Kagay-anons' first-hand experience of this law in action.

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1 http://www.goldstardailynews.com.ph/mindanao/casualty-takes-new-meaning-in-c-de-oro.html

2 http://www.goldstardailynews.com.ph/mindanao/montalba-takes-his-time-food-first-evacuation-later.html