AFP says it has not gotten request or information of distress call from Robredo

November 18, 2020

The Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) confirmed that the military has not received any request or information of distress call from Vice President Leni Robredo.

"Here at the General Headquarters from where all directives to deploy disaster responders emanate, no requests or information of distress calls were received from the Honorable Vice President," Major General Edgard Arevalo, AFP spokesman, said on Wednesday.

"Nonetheless, we were on a round-the-clock monitoring and deployed follow-on Search, Rescue, and Retrieval Teams at the onslaught of Typhoon 'Ulysses' with instructions to coordinate directly with Local Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Councils (LDRRMC) headed by local chief executives," he said.

Arevalo made his statement after Robredo posted on her Twitter account that their office has forwarded all distress calls they received to those they can contact on the ground including the "AFP and PNP everyone we can get hold of".

"It is the lives of our people that are at stake here. There is no space for our ego when lives at are stake," Robredo added.  

Arevalo emphasized that the "LGUs are in a better position to direct our SRR Teams to go to which locality according to their judgement of need and priority since they have the overall view of the situation."

"We deem it that way because during those times when we were inundated with requests for assistance, our SRRTs and assets will not be enough to respond to specific or individual requests for rescue," he said.

"But be that as it may, if ever the VP had our operational commanders as her 'contacts on the ground' as she mentioned in her tweet, and if those calls were received by our action units on the ground, they  will render appropriate actions as circumscribed in the orders of the President, Secretary of National Defense, and Chief of Staff, Armed Forces of the Philippines  to provide the needed assistance—with the information coming from Vice President," he added. Robina Asido/DMS