Eastern Visayas sends response team to Bicol

TACLOBAN CITY – The Eastern Visayas Regional Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council (RDRRMC) sent a multi-discipline inter-agency team to Bicol Region to help in the relief and rescue efforts in the typhoon-ravaged region.

Office of the Civil Defense regional director Lord Byron Torrecarion stated that the deployment of the response team is also a gesture of returning the favor to Bicolanos, who extended help during the onslaught of Super Typhoon Yolanda 11 years ago.

“Now it is our time to show that we are one with them and we stand together in facing any adversity,” Torrecarion said.

Torrecarreon mentioned that the 220-member response team of Eastern Visayas will be composed of personnel from the Police Regional Office 8, Bureau of Fire Protection, Philippine Coast Guard, Office of Civil Defense, and Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT).

A send-off ceremony was held at Camp Kangleon in Palo, Leyte on Thursday, 24 October 2024.

PRO8 regional director Police Brigadier General Jay R. Cumigad said the police officers in the team will significantly contribute to the relief and rescue efforts.

“The PNP, as a member agency of the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council, would like to affirm our mission of extending assistance by mobilizing rescue and relief efforts in the Bicol Region,” Cumigad said.

Torrecarreon said the team will bring with them search and rescue assets such as a mobile response vehicle, motorcycles, boats, trucks, a bus, a van, a coaster, and communication equipment.

He noted that the team will also provide augmentation support to areas in need of water rescue, clean water filtration, and transportation.

The city government Tacloban and the municipalities of Catarman, Northern Samar, Dulag, and Abuyog in Leyte also provided water rescue assets.

The team from Eastern Visayas is the first to respond and send rescuers outside Bicol Region.

Earlier, the army’s 8th Infantry “Stormtroopers” Division deployed 23 personnel for Humanitarian Assistance and Disaster Response (HADR) operations that will take part in the search and rescue mission in Bicol region.