21 or 8? Battle erupts over Ruby death toll

MANILA, Philippines - With the worst of Typhoon Ruby over, conflicting casualty figures have emerged from officials and aid agencies.

The National Disaster Risk Reduction Management Council pegged the official casualty figure at eight as of 3 p.m. yesterday, while the Philippine Red Cross (PRC) put the death toll at 21.

The NDRRMC said the three confirmed casualties were in Cebu, Samar and Biliran in Leyte. The number of injured based on NDRRMC count was 45, although nine of the cases have yet to be verified by the Department of Health

While the NDRRMC received reports of eight more casualties, it said it was still conducting “validation.” 

The PRC, meanwhile, clarified there were 21 confirmed typhoon-related deaths, and not 22 as reported by the agency last Monday. One of the deaths reported Monday turned out to be unrelated to Ruby’s onslaught.

The PRC also investigated 14 reports of casualties and found them to be unrelated to the disaster.

In an interview, PRC chairman Richard Gordon said the fatalities died from drowning, heart attack, hypothermia, fatal injuries from falling trees and landslides.

Asked about opinions that heart attacks should not be counted as Ruby-related deaths, Gordon noted that for the PRC, heart attacks are related to typhoon if they happen “during or in the course of the typhoon.”

“We are not in the business of counting the dead just for the sake of counting the dead. We are in the business of restoring family link. We have a duty to look for dead or missing people so we try to investigate what happened to them,” he pointed out.

In doing so, the PRC is recording remarkable details on dead people, including their clothes, for easier identification by their loved ones, relatives or friends.

Gordon revealed that all year round, the PRC’s family welfare desk has been helping those with missing loved ones locate them through these records.

The PRC has dispatched 30 trucks carrying food and non-food items that could feed some 5,000 people three times a day for one week.

The agency had also deployed personnel and volunteers to do rescue and relief efforts in areas devastated by Ruby.

Death certificates

With the conflicting figures, Malacañang yesterday moved to settle the matter by requiring that each reported death be confirmed through a death certificate.

“The certificate of death – this type of document is needed because the Department of Health has to assess whether a reported death is directly related to the recent calamity,” deputy presidential spokesperson Abigail Valte explained.

“Because we have a system of verification. It does not only involve eyeballing a casualty. Again, the cause of death has to be determined, whether it is connected to the typhoon,” she said.

Valte clarified that the two casualties reported Monday – the one-year-old and 65-year-old who both reportedly died of hypothermia in Iloilo – have turned out to be not related to Ruby “after validation by the DOH.”

She said the two victims died at the evacuation centers.

“So perhaps there may have already been a pre-existing condition and they were not exposed to the elements, precisely because they were inside the evacuation center,” Valte said.

“So, again, this is a look behind the process of validation and vetting that needs to be undertaken before a casualty is added to the official count. I cannot speak for the Red Cross as to the system that they implement,” she added.

The NDRRMC identified the two Iloilo fatalities removed from the official casualty list as Thea Rojo, 1, and Ernesto Baylon, 65. Both died of hypothermia last Saturday.

Their exclusion means that their families would no longer be qualified to receive P10,000 assistance from the government.

The government provides cash assistance to families of calamity victims. The financial assistance is usually sourced from calamity funds or from donations.

NDRRMC spokesperson Mina Marasigan explained that every reported death is subject to validation before it is included in the official list.

“We require documents that will prove that the one who died was indeed a resident of the area. We also look for death certificates and proof that the claimants are really relatives of the one who died,” Marasigan said in a phone interview.

“Money is involved here so we have to be very careful when verifying reports,” she added.

Marasigan said they were not delisting names just to make it appear that the government disaster response was largely successful. “It is for accuracy. It’s not for publicity,” she said.

Deaths mostly in Visayas

The NDRRMC said five of the confirmed fatalities were from Eastern Visayas, while the three others were from Calabarzon, Mimaropa and Central Visayas.

Four of the fatalities died of drowning, namely Aries Mercedes, 10, of Atimonan, Quezon; Narciso Alvarez, 83, of Western Samar; Velasco Tacuma, 60, of Kaybiga, Western Samar; and Gidmore Baylon, 85, of Kulaba, Biliran.

Two-month-old infant Princess Abelgas of Calbayog, Samar was crushed by a falling tree while Sunny Recto of Naval, Biliran got hit by debris.

A certain John Blanca, 20, of Socorro, Oriental Mindoro died in a landslide while a certain Jimmy Cardente, 14, died of electrocution. NDRRMC said the typhoon also left 151 persons injured.

More than 2.24 million people or 492,710 families have been affected by the typhoon.

Of the affected population, 1.65 million individuals or 369,193 families have been displaced.

Police at Camp Vicente Lim said two persons – including a  10-year-old boy – were reported missing in Batangas and Atimonan, Quezon. The boy was last seen falling overboard a small boat in Maling River in Atimonan, while the Batangas casualty was carried away by raging floodwaters while traveling on a motorcycle.

In Oriental Mindoro, 20-year-old Mark John Blanco was buried alive in Sto. Nino, Puerta Galera last Monday. With Alexis Romero, Delon Porcalla, Pia Lee Brago, Juancho Mahusay, Arnell Ozaeta, Evelyn Macairan, Ed Amoroso