TACLOBAN, Philippines (Reuters) - Minutes before a tsunami-like
storm surge slammed into the Philippine coastal city of Tacloban, a tall
man in a motorcycle helmet strode along the shore through ferocious
typhoon winds.
Mayor Alfred Romualdez, 51, was wearing the
headgear to protect against what he called a wind so strong "it would
take your eyes out." He didn't see the wall of water coming and was
lucky to survive the catastrophe that killed at least 819 people there
and 3,633 across the central Philippines.
The disaster not only
flattened his city, it also dredged up a history of enmity between his
political clan, led by shoe-loving former First Lady Imelda Marcos, and
the family of President Benigno Aquino -- the country's two most
influential political families.
President Aquino, under mounting
criticism over his handling of the disaster, has sought to deflect some
blame toward Romualdez's administration, whose staff and security forces
have been decimated by the storm.
"It appears (Tacloban) was not
that prepared, let's just say, compared to other areas," Aquino told
reporters in Manila a day after the typhoon hit.
The mayor's
wife, formerly a sultry B-movie star and now a Tacloban city councilor,
held a tearful news conference in Manila, apparently prompted by
Aquino's remarks. "This is not politics," said Cristina
Gonzales-Romualdez, her voice breaking.
The finger-pointing,
however, is sure to worsen as the typhoon's official death toll rises to
nearly 4,000 amid unrelenting recriminations over poorly enforced
evacuation orders and tardy relief efforts.
Super Typhoon Haiyan
turned Tacloban into a corpse-strewn ruin and made Romualdez - nephew of
Imelda and the late dictator Ferdinand Marcos - its most prominent
survivor.
It has also stirred up difficult questions over whether
the Marcos clan's history of bad blood with the current First Family
has hindered the often chaotic rescue and recovery efforts and whether
politics had a role in one of the country's worst natural disasters.
President Aquino's father, also called Benigno, was assassinated on his
return from exile in 1983 when Ferdinand Marcos was president. The
Marcos government said it was a lone gunman who broke through security
and shot Benigno Aquino dead on the tarmac.
The
corruption-riddled Marcos regime was overthrown three years later by a
"people power" revolution, fuelled by Benigno Aquino's death and led by
his late mother Corazon.
CAPTAIN WITHOUT A SHIP
The
Romualdez-Marcos clan have long had a political stranglehold over
Tacloban. Hanging in City Hall is a typhoon-tilted portrait of the man
Romualdez replaced as mayor in 2008: his father Alfredo, who held the
position for nine years.
Imelda's birthplace of Tolosa, a short
drive south of Tacloban in Leyte province, was badly affected by the
typhoon. The former first lady was crowned "The Rose of Tacloban" as a
teenage beauty queen.
Romualdez has defended his preparations for
the storm, which he said were approved by national government officials
at a meeting 24 hours beforehand. "They said everything was okay," he
told reporters at the battered City Hall on Friday, his voice hoarse
from days of shouting and little sleep. The odor of a nearby open-air
morgue wafted through the broken windows.
The typhoon overwhelmed the city's government operations.
A week later, an average of only 70 city officials, many of whom lost
homes and loved ones, were showing up for work each day, compared to a
staff of 2,500 before Haiyan struck.
Romualdez now resembles a
captain without a ship, trying to marshal meager resources while the
national government, aided by U.S. military might and international aid
agencies, increasingly takes control of resurrecting his city. Romualdez
has complained that Aquino's government is undermining him, citing a
request from Manila to declare the city administration dysfunctional so
the national authorities can take full control.
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