UNDP to appeal for $75-M assistance for 'Ondoy' victims

The Philippines needs $75 million worth of comprehensive package for the victims of tropical storm "Ondoy," United Nations Development Programme country director Renauld Meyer said Monday. At the Senate hearing on the effects of Ondoy, Meyer said the package would include "distribution of food, non food such as health equipment and blankets and clothings, shelter, education, health, and other very urgent needs that have been assessed to address the direct effect of flooding." He said a flash appeal will be launched in Geneva on Tuesday and in the Philippines on Wednesday "because of time difference." A flash appeal is a tool that the international community uses to call on international assistance for any disaster or catastrophe that is happening in a member state-country. "The objective of the flash appeal is to mobilize this money among the donor communities and member-states of United Nations," Meyer said in an interview after the hearing. He said that they based the amount on the assistance needed, as assessed by the joint teams that went out to all the municipalities that were affected by the floods last week, to cater for the immediate needs of the communities. Last week, the UN conducted a joint assessment of the situation in various provinces and places affected by the tropical storm. On September 26, Ondoy pummeled Metro Manila and other provinces in the Central Luzon and Calabarzon regions, killing 288 people. Weather authorities said Ondoy's rainfall was the most in recorded history, surpassing the previous record for the metropolis in 1967. - Amita Legaspi, GMANews.TV