GUIDANCE IN PROTECTING THE DIGNITY OF PERSONS DURING EPISODES OF INTERNAL DISPLACEMENT By Gov Joey Salceda The dignity of persons and the integrity of families are central to our goals. Thus, in times of displacement, we must be clear and conscious to respect dignity, enhance dignity and employ the dignity of internally displaced persons. 1. Bawal na bawal ang pila. Kill the queue. A disaster hurts our evacuees and the evacuation needed to avoid it also requires both personal and wholesale community sacrifices by way of disruption of their normal life, thus it would constitute a double jeopardy or an ignominy to make them fall in line just to secure what they deserve or what is already their right and what is essentially the duty of the community or the government is elected. All rations must be distributed through barangay officials then through barangay kagawads and then to purok officers who actually manage the rooms where their nasasakupans are billeted. The province releases the daily rations based on actual evacuated families by at least 1 day ahead so you can plan. Moreover, families inside evacuation centers are given their claim stubs which they can use to claim their rations from their purok leader or from the supply centre of an evacuation camp. 2. Bawal ang sandok preso. No community kitchen or soup kitchen. In our advanced evacuation camps, there are common serviced facilities where the mothers/wives can cook for there families. The underlying logic is that in the rural setting 70% of feeding the family from marketing or going to the market, then cooking and then serving is conducted by women. Since we constantly and consciously try to make evacuation camps to approximate nomad living conditions except that their homes is not in the barangay but instead inside an evacuation camp. Unlike those under state-ordered reclusion, the limitation on evacuees is the location of their residence being at risk to a hazard. Thus, they must retain the right to choose the saltiness of their sautéed sardines. 3. Decongest the rooms: when a house is a room full of neighbours. We must try to limit each room as much as possible to 20 person or 4-5 families only not because it is in keeping with Spheres Standard but, again this is to provide space essential to make operative the dignity of persons and the intimacy (whatever is left of it) amongst the family members, even under adverse conditions. Guinobatan currently uses a hotel for the special sectors like the elderly and persons with disability. 4. Right to classroom: evacuees have superior rights over schoolchildren. We are prohibiting any diskarte or manuevers by school managers to keep classes going by making evacuees go out of the classroom first. This is not in consonance with the value, which is our avowed goal, that the temporary shelter for internally displaced persons/families should approximate their homes except that we transported those homes into an evacuation camp. What kind of home is it that you empty everyday to accommodate other purposes? Thats wrong, that assaults the dignity of IDPs. 5. Temporary classrooms and permanent evacuation centres. Were it not for the rabid territoriality of our people - Guinobatan evacuees want to be evacuated inside Guinobatan- we would have more rooms in our permanent evacuation centres in Polangui, Oas, Libon, Legazpi, Manito. However, we want faster evacuation (argumentation only ending in resistance) since a hazardous (not quiet) eruption is imminent within weeks (not months). In the meantime, we face double disruption of classes: first - the children studying in schools located in 6/6-8PDZ and second, children- whose classrooms we commandeered to accommodate evacuees. UNICEF is now sending 155 classroom tents (hopefully with 40 armchairs) so classes esp. for the children of the evacuated families could resume. We need at least 950 classroom-tents to bring schooling back to normal- our target is in two weeks. In the long run, we have to build more than the 11 permanent evacuation centres esp for hazards where the countermeasure is distance (volcanic eruption) in contrast to where the countermeasure is the strength of the structure (wind hazards of typhoons) or where the countermeasure is height (floods/flashfloods of storms and other climate event). 6. Every centre is a barangay. Like barangays, each evacuation camp has a health station. All 22 evacuation camps are now manned 24/7 by a health station or clinic with 3 EMTs and a rotating doctor under AHEM. The 1st district and 3rd district under Albay Pho with referral hospitals as !st - Ziga and 3rd - Duran. Focal person is Dr. Nats Rempillo The 2nd district - essentially, Daraga and Camalig - are manned and managed by Brtth Hems with referral hospital being BRRTH. Focal person is Dr. Eric Raborar. Nevertheless, the 22 health stations are there for regular consultation, basic treatment/prehospital care and possible referral to hospital. Our cumulative experience (including 11 major humanitarian missions) show that by posting a permanent point of health service delivery solves the shopping behaviour where consultations are for common complaints. AHEM stations are the point person of the provincial government in each of the camp since camp management is controlled by Deped principal/head teacher and supply is controlled by Lgus and barangays. 7. Open city declaration of Albay. Donors can directly access or choose among the 22 evacuation camps without having to seek permission from the Province. We have practiced this again and again since 2007. Our AHEM station will monitor all entry of resources into the camp. No food tasting but only for records in case of possible cases of food poisoning and other menu mishaps. Medical missions are welcome as additional resources and additional preemptive procedures esp. since given the sudden escalation from Alert 2 to Alert 3. 8. Disaster tourism or even voluntourism is not promoted or sponsored activity by the Provincial Govt. Clearly, the dignity of persons and the integrity of families will be undermined by any promotion of tourism on the backs of the sacrifices of our internally displaced persons who are initially already vulnerable, thus disadvantaged. We are very cautious, nay more than circumspect, in talking about tourism amidst the distress of 50,000 people. Nonetheless, the whole community is aware of these tradeoffs and these tradeoffs must be decided with preferential bias for those who are internally displaced by the phenomenon not for those who benefit from it. What is critical is that we as a people must first do all that we can for the evacuees or that we are convinced ourselves that we will achieve zero casualty, only then we can start talking about tourism. As we have seen in Mayon Eruption 2009, tourism surged but we have also achieved zero casualty and in fact have improved the lives of our people with the massive net resource transfers to the vulnerable families. Strictly prohibited: 1. ATV ride activities going towards Mayon Volcano; 2. Mayon Climbing/Trekking; 3. Playing golf at the Dona Pepita Golf Course; and 4. All other recreational/exploratory activities within the PDZ and EDZ. Safe vantage points for visitors/tourists: 1. Lignon Hill 2. Cagsawa Ruins Park 3. Daraga Church 4. Legazpi City Boulevard 5. Taysan Hills 6. Quintuinan Hills There are 3,744 carabaos, 2,035 cattle, 5,576 swine, 19,304 poultry and 4,640 dogs in the 40 barangays 6km PDZ. And we have to budget P3 per head per day for their evacuation so families will have no alibi to go home or not to cooperate with the evacuation. --indicative of how thorough our tracking of people and livestock is. Joey Sarte Salceda
Posted on: Thu, 02 Oct 2014 10:11:10 +0000
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