Not until November 14th, six days after the typhoon struck, did one of the ships, the Ramon Alcaraz, leave port—not to hurry toward hard-hit Leyte and Samar islands in the country’s Visayan region, but to Manila, for a brief christening ceremony on November 22nd that had been postponed from October, when the ship was already operational. The Ramon Alcaraz finally anchored near the devastated town of Tacloban, Leyte Island, on November 24th. It carried 200 tons of relief supplies and equipment, but this was sixteen days after the typhoon had struck.
The sister ship Gregorio del Pilar remained tranquilly docked at its Subic pier until November 15th, arriving at Tacloban on the 17th, nine days after the typhoon, according to a navy spokesperson. The Gregorio del Pilar carried no additional relief supplies or equipment. When asked why, as dozens of vessels from foreign navies were arriving to help the devastated region, the Philippines kept its most advanced ships at dock, the navy spokesperson said “we had lots of ships already there, in the Visayas,†and he had no clear explanation of why, then, the two Philippine ships were eventually deployed to the same region when the crisis was less severe.
The Gregorio del Pilar, Subic Bay, November 13th, 2013. Photo by Victor Robert Lee.
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