Safety and Emergency Assistance Network: December 2013

Wednesday, December 25, 2013

Greetings to each and everyone!!!

Monday, December 23, 2013

Letter to Pres. Aquino and Sec. Abaya

Open Letter to His Excellency Benigno Simeon Aquino III
President of the Philippines and
The Honorable Joseph Emilio Abaya, Secretary
Department of Transportation and Communications

Dear President Aquino and Secretary Abaya:

Between 1989-1990, we began the advocacy for a Philippine safety agency that led to the passage of the Republic Act to create the NTSB - National Transportation Safety Board.

Shown below is the reconstruction of the briefing on the need to operationalize the National Transportation Safety Board. We revised the briefing over and over again. The updating of the voluminous data on accidents over land, to include actuarial and statistical computations of the probabilities of new accidents for extended, extrapolated periods, is not included since it would be too tasking for us and we do not have the resources nor are equipped any longer to undertake the job.

In the past, we were fortunate to be working with a foreign counterpart - the Harris Corporation Florida USA, a conglomerate with over 100 companies under its wings, that allowed us to opportunity to campaign for the privatization of the then Air Transportation Office's ATS (Air Traffic Service) as well as to push for the creation of the Philippines' transport safety agency.

- Original proponents for National Transport Safety Board 1994

Friday, December 20, 2013

Speeding and Bad Roads - Formula for Disaster

Yahoo: CCTV shows Don Mariano Transit speeding before tragedy

From yahoo.com, a video shows that the killer bus owned by the Don Mariano Transit that took 18 lives of its passengers was on a speeding frenzy prior to the accident, the report says.

The authorities reviewing the video say the bus was running at more than 100 kilometers per hour while at the point of the accident the speed limit was only 80 kilometers per hour.

Bad road design and structure in RP

A comment by "A Yahoo User" on the video sourced from ANC, says thus:

if one where to look closely at the footage, one can see that there was water in the path of the bus. What does this mean? I believe that the swerving may be the cause of hydroplaning.that and the speed of the bus i believe could be the main causes of the bus falling

By design, the coupling of speeding vehicles and bad road designs and structures that are common in poor or developing countries are a mortal combination. Compounded with dilapidated vehicle features and parts - that as claimed by the Skyway administration was evident in the Don Mariano Transit bus unit's totally bald tires with treads wholly worn away - the accident was bound to happen.

Safety on the Road

Recently, one of the buses of Don Mariano Transit figured in an accident where it is reported that 18 people died (see photo below).

Photo Credit: Manila Bulletin, December 16, 2013 by Michael Varcas

The attention of everyone, especially our government officials, is most earnestly called towards past proposals, suggestions, recommendations, encouragement, admonitions, for making transport safety a key concern of the public sector.

At this time, whether or not the Philippine Government under Pres. Benigno Simeon Cojuangco Aquino the 3rd will listen to all these unsolicited advice will be the determinant of the future of public safety on the streets of the country, sea and ocean lanes, and the Philippine air ways.

One of the hundreds of proposals on transport safety became a certified legislation of the Ramos Administration in 1994-1995. It was an executive order draft that instead was forwarded with strong endorsement by former President Fidel V. Ramos to the two houses of Congress to be made into Law due to the inclusion of a component providing for changes in users' fees and charges in the transportation industry. More > >

Themes: Safety, Transportation, United Nations

Advocacy articles on transport safety past by title and tagline:

Open Letter to Philippine President on Transport Safety
Resource Recovery Movement: tagline tansport, Boncodin
Archangel blog: tagline transport safety, Emilia Boncodin
Rhea Elizabeth Lou blog: tag safety, former Sec. Boncodin

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Rescue Olympics - rules of the game

August 6, 2014

The Honorable Joseph A. Main
Assistant Secretary of Labor for Mine Safety and Health
Office of the Assistant Secretary
Mine Safety and Health Administration
Department of Labor

Dear Assistant Secretary Main:

For the last five years, the Rotary Club Manila East has been actively sponsoring the holding of a limited national capital region - Metropolitan Manila Philippines fire rescue contest at the Rizal Park in the City of Manila.

Our group in the Philippines, the Resource Recovery Movement (RRM) organized by the Center Humanes Societas Inc., has determined to hold an event of national scale similar to the Mine Rescue Contest of the MSHA of the United States. We would like permission to publish the adaptation of your rules into our contest rules for our targeted publics to be aware of them.

In this connection, we would like to utilize all of the salient points of the Mine Rescue Contest for the contest rules of the Rescue competitions that we will be organizing - hopefully in cooperation with the Rotary Club of the Philippines - under the Urban Rescue category.

Thank you so very much and we hope if you and your people have got the time to write us, kindly send us any useful suggestions on how to make our rescue competition event a real success.

Shown below is the draft of the rules as we adapted them that could still stand a number of corrections.

More power to MSHA!

Very truly yours,

Centre Humanes Societas Inc.
Philippines

Thank You UN, ICRC, Supporting Countries and Relief Groups!

Thank you ICRC and Philippine Red Cross for all your efforts after #Yolanda in the affected Regions of the Philippines! More power to you! Godspeed and God bless you!

Thank you United Nations and United Nations OCHA (Director Khalikov), United Nations International Strategy for Disaster Risk Reduction (Secretary Margareta Wahlstrom) for relief and recovery assistance, for your Flash Appeal world wide and to Excellency Ban Ki Moon for taking the time off his very busy schedule to visit Tacloban City! May God bless all of you and more power to you!

A very warm Merry Christmas and Happy New Year greetings to all your people, officers and workers all over the world!!! We love you all together with all those kind and generous ones from a myriad of countries and relief organizations that shared time, resources, blood sweat and tears for the victims of recent Philippine disaster!

Post-Disaster

Reconstruction and Recovery

The World Bank says thattimely reconstruction will help lessen the impact of super typhoon Yolanda. Before we digest these words, it is also significant to look back into the past.

There was a time in fairly recent past when NBC news anchor Brian Williamssounded like a broken record repeating the words over and over again that: Aviation in the United States of America is dying.

This is now true with Philippine air line companies and selected several other businesses in the Philippines right at this very moment.

During the post-Yolanda period, only at least one air line company that very enterprisingly lowered its passenger rates (presumably including for cargo) per seat-mile, notwithstanding that the Philippine government ordered that a number of fees and charges being levied in the aviation sector will be waived, among other behests in order to lessen the burden for victims of the calamity and those that had to fly to ground zero to participate in disaster relief and recovery operations. It is not difficult to hear a wisecrack such as: this suddenly successful air line company must have entered into a conspiracy with Yolanda just to boost its sales. More > >

Fighting Climate Change Distracts Governments

After the 2005 Hyogo Conference, scientists urged the United Nations to consider that the various conflicting issues surrounding Climate Change is "distracting governments" from providing solutions to threats of disasters worldwide.

"The current UN focus on "fighting climate change," as illustrated in the Nov. 27 UN Development Programme's Human Development Report, is distracting governments from adapting to the threat of inevitable natural climate changes, whatever forms they may take. National and international planning for such changes is needed, with a focus on helping our most vulnerable citizens adapt to conditions that lie ahead. Attempts to prevent global climate change from occurring are ultimately futile, and constitute a tragic misallocation of resources that would be better spent on humanity's real and pressing problems."

A letter written to UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon ventilated sentiments of scientists and technology experts on the issue of focusing deeper into finding means to adapt to the threat of climate change.

HMES