In his capacity as ASEAN Humanitarian Assistance Coordinator, Secretary-General Le Luong Minh will visit the Philippines today to personally convey ASEAN’s solidarity with the Filipino people and show the Association’s support to typhoon-ravaged communities.
“ASEAN is one community and we stand shoulder-to-shoulder with the Philippines in this very difficult time,” Secretary-General Minh said. “We have been informing and mobilising support from the Member States and will continue to facilitate ASEAN’s response to this calamity in order to assist the Philippines in its relief and recovery efforts,” Minh added.
Minh’s first stop will be in Manila where he is expected to meet with relevant government officials. The ASEAN Secretary-General will brief them on ASEAN’s response thus far to the emergency and recovery efforts taking place in affected towns and villages in central Philippines which bore the brunt of super typhoon Haiyan. He will then fly to Tacloban and visit affected communities in the city and also show his support to individuals and organisations providing relief and assistance on the ground. There is also a plan to visit other affected communities.
A team of humanitarian response specialists from ASEAN has been operating in the Philippines since the day before typhoon Haiyan struck the country to facilitate the Association’s response. Through the ASEAN Coordinating Centre for Humanitarian Assistance on disaster management (AHA Centre), ASEAN has been facilitating the provision of regional humanitarian assistance as well as relief assistance from Member States to the Philippines. Its emergency rapid assessment team was instrumental in providing the Member States with information which served as the basis for their support. AHA Centre’s ground team was also responsible for facilitating delivery and distribution of ASEAN Member States contributions to the ongoing emergency and relief efforts. To date, ASEAN Member States are estimated to have provided a total of USD10M in financial aid and in-kind contribution to the Philippine Government in response to this calamity.