According to the progressive Multi-Stakeholders Initiatives for Humanitarian Action against Disasters (MiHANDs), government agencies and mainstream NGOs are reluctant to provide support in some areas where there is low-level conflict with the New People’s Army (NPA – the armed wing of the Communist Party of the Philippines). Some remote communities have also been left out of government agency relief and reconstruction efforts. Others have received token and completely inadequate support. Most of these communities are indigenous.

Even where government agencies and NGOs have responded, many vulnerable people are not receiving support. “There are evacuation sites that lack sanitation facilities which prompted some of the affected families to stay outside the site and close to their damaged houses or neighbors where toilets are readily accessible. These affected families who stay outside of the evacuation centers are less likely included in the relief distribution.” [1]

Goverment agencies including the Department of Labor and local governments across Mindanao have been providing some cash and material assistance. [2] Unfortunately, some pro-government activists have been spreading fake news that exaggerates the scale and efficiency of the official disaster response. [3] Photos of soldiers assisting civilians during a typhoon relief operation in Aurora province several years ago have been republished and reposed several thousand times in the last couple of days. As if to ‘prove’ that the Armed Forces of the Philippines have good relations with the Moro and Lumad peoples and the other rural residents in Mindanao.

As we wrote earlier, “Government services are of poor quality and not focused on the needs of the urban and rural poor, as well as the Moro and Lumad (indigenous) peoples. Government resources have long been concentrated on protection of corporate investors and a low-intensity confrontation with various armed rebels.” [4]

The MiHANDs coalition is focusing its humanitarian assistance on 4,289 affected Bangsamoro and indigenous families. Cash donations will be used to provide ood and non-food items. MiHANDs is also mobilizing its volunteers to provide psychosocial interventions as well as information and training for local people to reduce risk of water-born diseases.