Aquino on top of ‘Chedeng’ situation — Palace

President Benigno Aquino III will be out of the country when typhoon “Chedeng" makes landfall on Thursday, but he will still be on top of the situation, his spokesperson said Wednesday. At a press briefing in Malacañang, presidential spokesperson Edwin Lacierda said Aquino has instructed the heads of concerned agencies to report to him regularly even if he is in a two-day working visit in Thailand. Those who were given instructions were Executive Secretary Paquito Ochoa Jr.; Defense Secretary Voltaire Gazmin, who also heads the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Coordinating Council; Interior Secretary Jesse Robredo, who is tasked to coordinate with local government officials; NDRRMC executive director Benito Ramos; and Social Welfare and Development Secretary Corazon Soliman for the prepositioning of goods. “This is not the first time that it happened so that is the process that we are going through, all of them have been informed and they know, they have been instructed what to do," Lacierda said. Aquino will be leaving for Thailand Thursday morning. Lacierda said the President will employ a similar method used when an earthquake and a tsunami hit Japan earlier this year, which raised fear that a tsunami may also hit the country. That time, Aquino was in Singapore also for a state visit. Lacierda said the President will use similar ways of coordinating with leading government agencies in charge of handling disasters. “We are confident there was enough time for our local officials or public officials as well as citizens to be informed of the typhoons. The local government officials have enough time to prepare so we hope we have a zero-casualty," he added. With this, he reiterated the government’s appeal to the public to monitor regular news bulletins and coordinate with local officials in their respective areas and heed calls for evacuations if it is necessary. “We would like to ask the citizens to cooperate with our local officials. We appeal to people in the affected areas to coordinate with our local officials if they are advised to evacuate," Lacierda said. — KBK, GMA News