ZAMBO, CRISE HUMANITAIRE ?

La vie s’est arrêtée à Zamboanga.

Comme vous le savez certainement, dans cette ville de l’extrême Sud-ouest de l’île de Mindanao, environ deux cents rebelles du MNLF, fidèles du leader Nur Misuari, ont pris et retiennent en otages deux cents civils. 

Je ne vais pas revenir sur le conflit, mais plutôt vous parler de la situation de près d’un million d’habitants qui commencent à souffrir de la pénurie alimentaire et du manque de produits de première nécessité.

Le principal problème que les autorités vont avoir à gérer, si la situation venait à perdurer, comment approvisionner la ville alors que le port et l’aéroport sont fermés et que les routes sont peu sûres ?

La principale industrie de la ville, la conserve de sardines, industrie qui emploie plus de 15.000 personnes dans huit unités de production, est close. Ce qui veut dire que les employés ne vont pas être payés et que cela risque de poser un sérieux problème dans les jours à venir.

Les supermarchés et Centres Commerciaux n’ouvrent plus que quelques heures par jour et ne sont plus ravitaillés.

Food, medicine, toiletries and other basic needs are fast disappearing in parts of war torn Zamboanga City as fighting between government troops and Moro National Liberation Front gunmen enters Day 5, engulfing the city in a dark pall of violence and isolation, forcing a business group to appeal for government to resolve the situation and for donations in kind to cover the basic needs of the people after the normal supply lines and the course of commerce have been disrupted.

While electricity continues to energize the city, helped by the fact that canning and other factories have shut down since Monday, all commercial flights – except military aircraft – have been suspended by the Civil Aviation Authority of the Philippines (CAAP) until Sept. 21.

"We appeal for support for ready to eat food stuffs, toiletries, medicine,” Pedro Soliven, Zamboanga Chamber of Commerce president, said in a text message to GMA News Online on Thursday.

The business group also appealed for “... the government to take a decisive action, to end the five-day siege ASAP (as soon as possible)," he added.

The city is "still volatile and standstill" and there are still no flights and shipping, Soliven noted.

Already in place is a resolution on forced evacuation to minimize civilian casualties.

"The city approved a resolution on forced evacuation. Evacuation sites are schools, churches and the city sports complex," said Soliven.

In a separate interview by phone last Tuesday, Soliven noted only a few supermarkets opened for business and only for a couple of hours so that people shop for basic necessities.

In a report on GMA News TV's “News To Go” on Friday, stringer Jayvee Francisco said an official of the Zamboanga Chamber of Commerce described the city as "paralyzed" particularly because almost all modes of transportation to and from the city were suspended.

Still, travel by land was limited because of a 5 a.m. to 8 p.m. curfew in the city.

CAAP also declared a 25-nautical mile no-fly zone surrounding the Zamboanga International Airport, except for military and special government flights.

Nearby airports in the cities of Dipolog and Pagadian, however, are operating taking up the slack from Zamboanga.

PNoy vows to end crisis

Philippine President Benigno Aquino visited Zamboanga on Friday, vowing to end the crisis and warning the gunmen against harming civilian hostages or resorting to flagrant destruction.

Aquino urged the port city of Zamboanga to stand firm as MNLF fighters battled troops and set fire to homes for a fifth day in a bid to derail efforts to end a long Muslim rebellion.

"Our forces and equipment on the ground are overwhelming," Aquino told a news conference, while stressing there were no shortcuts to resolving the crisis without risking heavy casualties.

Officials said nearly 200 Zamboanga residents have been seized and are being used as human shields by gunmen holding out in parts of six coastal districts of the city.

"We cannot rush this. We have to be deliberate in order to ensure no lives are lost unnecessarily," Aquino said.

"We're not setting a deadline but we have decisive points. If they harmed hostages, resorted to arson and crossed other lines that should not be crossed, our security forces have instructions on what to do."

At least 22 people have been killed and 52 wounded in Zamboanga, while 19 of the gunmen have surrendered or been captured, military spokesman Lieutenant-Colonel Ramon Zagala told AFP.

Passenger safety

Cebu Pacific continues to operate commercial flights from Dipolog and Pagadian, but passenger safety remains a priority for the airline that the company isn't encouraging clients to rebook flights from Zamboanga because travel by land may not be safe, Candice Iyog the airline's vice president for marketing and distribution told GMA News Online.

"We have flights there but we don't know if it's safe to travel. We don't want to sacrifice the safety of our passengers, so it's not our top priority," she said.

Instead, the airline is giving passengers the option to rebook flights with no penalties or to have a full refund.

Rival Philippine Airlines (PAL) opted for contingency measures by ferrying passengers out of the beleaguered city to Cebu on board a Philippine Air Force (PAF) C-130 plane.

PAL said it flew the first batch of 80 passengers on board a PAF C-130 to Cebu. The batch was part of 450 passengers from Jolo, who are Muslim pilgrims bound for Mecca via Manila.

In separate advisories Friday, PAL and Cebu Pacific said they are closely coordinating with government and the PAF to ferry stranded passengers – mostly Muslim pilgrims bound for Mecca – from Zamboanga to Cebu where they can be accommodated by flights to Manila.

"This is an initiative that was made by the Department of Interior and Local Government with the Philippine Air Force on the appeal of NCMF, so we don't know how many can be flown out of Zamboanga," Iyog said.

NCMF is the National Commission on Muslim Filipino.

Operations at the Zamboanga seaport were also suspended on orders of Lieutenant Junior-Grade Jomark Angue, Philippine Coast Guard (PCG) Zamboanga station commander, as passenger safety by sea remains uncertain.

The Zamboanga port caters to passenger ships to Manila, Bacolod, Dumaguete, Cebu, and Davao. Ferryboats also convey goods and passengers to Sandakan in Sabah, Malaysia.

Power situation

The Department of Energy said there so far is no power supply problem in Zamboanga.

"We made sure that there is enough supply of electricity in Zamboanga,” DOE Electric Power Industry Management Bureau director Mylene Capongcol told GMA News Online in a separate interview.

“So far, there have been no reports of power outages," she added.

Zamboanga's 16 canning plants, mostly sardine factories, were shut down and businesses were shuttered since the turmoil started on Monday.

With huge power contracts idle, the imbalance in supply and demand may happen – a situation that is an obvious force majeure, Capongcol noted.

"If the factories do not meet the power supply contracts, the independent power producers can treat this as force majeure due to the situation in Zamboanga... It's almost war," she said.

"The National Power Corporation can allocate the unused electricity to neighboring areas as the city currently has a limited demand," Capongcol added.

Comments are welcome.

Avis, critiques et commentaires, comme d’habitude sont les bienvenus.

Les articles de ce blog sont © Copyright protected. Leur reproduction, mise en réseau public ou privé, sous quelque forme sont interdites sans l'accord préalable de l'auteur.

Retrouvez moi sur :

<  http://www.expatauxphilippines.blogspot.com  > 

pour plus d'information.

Forum en français sur :

< http://www.maretraiteauxphilippines.blogspot.com >

“Épouser une Femme Philippine”

sous titré, 

Chercher Trouver et Marier une Pinay,

S’adresse à tous les hommes occidentaux  qui souhaitent trouver aux pays des 7.107 îles celle qui deviendra la compagne de leur vie.

Un livre complet qui aborde tous les sujets sans tabous.

Plus d’information sur la page ‘’livres’’

Mon petit livre 

“101 façons de Générer des Revenus aux Philippines, pour y vivre’’ est maintenant disponible. 

Vous trouverez plus d’information sur la page ‘’Livres’’