Communication with Communities Situation Report - Typhoon Hagupit as of 12 Dec 2014

Needs:

• Inadequate information on food, shelter, livelihood, education, water and health adds worries to the affected communities in most part of Eastern Samar.

• With only few radio and TV stations active after the typhoon, affected communities had to rely on updates coming from friends and neighbors, barangay councils and some humanitarian agencies.

Response:

• Far East Broadcasting Company-First Response Radio (FEBC-FRR) and PECOJON will deploy a team in Borongan and will set up emergency radio facility to support one local radio station start live broadcast of the ongoing humanitarian response.

• CwC/AAP working group in Tacloban and Borongan continues to update life-saving key messages and humanitarian information through newsletter distributed in the affected areas in Eastern Samar.

• Information needs and preferred communication assessment conducted by PECOJON and Radyo Abante for Eastern Samar is available at this link: https://www.dropbox.com/s/ycziu21j8stqop0/PECOJON%20RNA%20Eastern%20Samar.pdf?dl=0. Highlights of the assessment stressed that in post-Hagupit, affected communities relied on families, friends and neighbors as the primary source of information followed by community leaders and SMS from relatives or loved ones. Availability of radio and TV would be very helpful in terms of obtaining news happening in the other areas.

• In Borongan, IOM takes the lead in the conduct of community feedback sessions with the internally displaced persons. This is to augment the ongoing information needs and preferred communication channel assessments by the CwC/AAP working group.

• Though the Digital Humanitarian Network (DHN) has been deactivated, consolidated results from the social media can still be viewed in these links: http://bit.ly/1AMM8KL and http://micromappers.org/. Rappler and Project Agos continue to document crowdsourced data (via alert maps) on evacuation centers, cyclone path, status of media outlets (radio and TV) and ongoing relief operations. The result can be viewed in this link: http://agos.rappler.com.

• SMART telecom sets up free call and charging stations in Borongan, Dolores, Taft, and Catarman in Eastern Samar as well as in Caluag in Quezon, Sta. Cruz and Boac in Marinduque and Bogo in Northern Cebu. It also deployed portable generators in Sorsogon, Quezon and Marinduque. Coverage of areas restored includes Allen-Londres, Sanlisdro, Rosario, Bobon, Catarman, Yakal, Modragon, San Roque, Laoan and Pambujan.

• Globe telecom restored 34 cell sites within Eastern Samar and continues to provide free call and charging services in Eastern Samar affected areas. It also offered free calls for Filipinos from eight countries (Canada, Hong Kong, Italy, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Spain, UK and USA) for them to be able to communicate with their loved ones.

Gaps & Constraints:

• 21 areas in Eastern Samar are still experiencing power outage. As most power lines were damaged, affected communities have less access to information and other updates from radio, TV, internet and even SMS.

For additional information and queries, please contact:

Gil Francis G. Arevalo, Communications with Communities Officer, OCHA, Manila, arevalog@un.org, +63 917-515-3539

Catherine Alcaraz, Communications with Communities Officer, OCHA, Tacloban, alcarazc@un.org, +63 917-554-6155