EFSL RAPID ASSESSMENT REPORT EASTERN SAMAR
Name of Authors
: Meilinarti and Marie Boulinaud
Type of shock
: Typhoon Haiyan /Yolanda
Date of onset / shock
: 8 Nov 2013
Affected areas assessed
: Eastern Samar Province, SAMAR island
Date(s) of assessment
: 19 to 23rd of November 2013
INTRODUCTION
Total population in assessed affected areas: 39,338 HH (more affected families in municipalities of
Llorente, Gen Mac Arthur, and on a smaller scale in Madolong and Borongan, but those
municipalities were not assesses by the EFSL team)
Population (based on
Localities
Balangkayan
Hernani
Salcedo
Mercedes
Guiuan
Quinapondan
Giporlos
Lawaan
Balangiga
Total
# of
affected national average of 5
barangay HH
members per HH)
4
2352
13
2464
42
5165
16
1649
60
13500
25
3432
18
3917
16
3219
13
3640
207
39338
196690
% of population affected in the area: 100% (distinction made by the local authorities between
families having their house partially damaged and those with houses totally damaged)
Sources of information : Focus Group discussions with women groups, men groups, fisherfolk
association presidents, women’s association presidents, local leaders and traders in the
municipalities of Mercedes, Salcedo, Guiuan, Quinapondan and Giporlos.
Borongan, Llorente, General Mac Arthur, Quinapondan, Salcedo and Guiuan markets have been
visited. Stock of basic commodities has been assessed, as well as hardware shops in General Mac
Arthur and Guiuan to assess the availability of basic house repair material and capacity of traders to
restock.
In the areas assessed, municipalities are reporting 100% of families being affected having had their
house partially or totally destroyed by the wind or the storm surge, and their livelihoods affected
through boat damage, crop damage and coconut trees falls.
Affected households have received food assistance that could last for about a month, but food aid
keeps arriving on a daily basis.
Immediate needs include inputs to allow affected households to rebuild or repair their house, that’s
the first priority for interviewed families. Livelihood recovery should come soon after as fishermen
are eager to go back fishing as soon as possible and coconut farmers need an alternative livelihoods
in locations where 100% of coconut trees have fallen.
Food Gap:
The food gap is currently about 25% of the food needs, but given the constant food assistance
people have been receiving for the last two weeks, we can expect the food gap to be up to 70% once
food aid stops.
Food Security/Diet diversity:
Before the typhoon, people were eating rice and fresh fish every day, together with leafy vegetables.
Root crops such as sweet potatoes and cassava, meat such as chicken and pork and banana flower
were eaten about three times a week. The diet was therefore adequate and diversified.
Since the typhoon, people have been eating almost only the “relief food”, made of rice, canned fish
and noodles (canned fish being not liked by fishermen community used to fresh fish, sale of canned
fish has been seen in a barangay).
Household and especially elderly people would prefer consume the locally grown rice from National
Philippine Agricultural Dept, which is less processed than the imported one. A sack cost P600/sack
(50kg) before the typhoon and P1350/Sack since then, so an increase of 125%, the price per kilo has
increased from P27/Kg to P47/kg after the typhoon.
Before the typhoon, 90% of households were using charcoal or firewood for cooking and 1 % were
using gas stoves. After the typhoon mostly people use firewood from the fallen trees or rubbles and
coconut shells.
Based on local prices and local diet habits, a monthly food basket for a family of 5 would cost 8,085p
per month.
Kilo per
HH/mth
Price/kg
Price
per
month
(pesos)
1,080
45
45.0
2,025.0
100
270
15
200.0
3,000.0
15
133
2
70.0
157.5
PORK, FATTY
45
241
7
180.0
1,215.0
POTATO, SWEET, ORANGE
150
131
23
50.0
1,125.0
CASSAVA, FRESH
150
240
23
25.0
562.5
MONTHLY FOOD BASKET
RATION
ENERGY
g/person/day
kcal
RICE
300
FISH, DRIED, SALTED
OIL, VEGETABLE (WFP
SPECS.)
Monthly food basket
2,095
Immediate needs:
Priority number one for the affected population is to rebuild or repair their house and having the
necessary inputs (in form of cash or material) for that. People were seen starting to repair or rebuild
their house from recycled material coming from the rubbles being gathered (nails, iron sheets,
tumber from fallen trees, etc).
8,085.0
Most of the fishermen require immediate support in restarting livelihood activities and coconut tree
farmers need an immediate alternative livelihoods, which would most probably be cash and food
crop cultivation.
Food assistance length is hard to be estimated as truck full of relief food seem to be arriving in
Eastern Samar every day, delivering small amounts of food relief everyday in all municipalities. From
the people interviewed, this assistance would cover no more than three weeks of food needs for a
family.
Livelihoods recovery needs:
People are requiring immediate support in protecting livelihood assets especially for the fishermen
who lost their fishing equipment and had their boat partially or fully damaged. Boat motors have
also suffered a lot and most of them are not functioning anymore. Farmers who lost their coconut
tree (from which they were producing copra) need to clean their field for cultivation of cash and
food crop such as cassava, sweet cassava, “kamute” (sweet potatoes), banana etc.
From the assessment, it seems that half of the population was farming and the other half was
fishing, and that is in all visited municipalities.
The high season for fishing is from November to December, but fishermen go out fishing all year
long, the low season has been mentioned to be the full moon days.
Livelihood activities that need to be started/restarted in the next 2 months are:
o Farming for cash crop and own consumption as a replacement to coconut farming (root crops,
vegetables mainly, fruit trees could be thought of while not mentioned by the people)
o Fishing for fishermen
o Market rehabilitation for traders
Assets needed:
-
Seeds and seedlings
Cash for boat repairs
Fishing gears (one boat locally made could cost about 20,000pesos, while a 10 horse power
motor would cost 12,000p additional)
Markets:
Main supply location before the typhoon was Tacloban for the southern part of Eastern Samar
province, the second one being Catbalogan in Western Samar. The supply chain has been seriously
disrupted as the typhoon devastated Tacloban and wholesale traders were out of business since
then, leaving traders from affected areas in E.Samar with no supplier. Some traders mentioned
getting supplies from Manila through the Manila-Legaspi-Allen route (ferries crossing from the south
east of Luzon to the north of Samar island). The typhoon has not struck all municipalities along the
coastline between Borongan and Guiuan with the same severity, the less affected municipalities
being Borongan, Maydolong, LLorente, General Mac Arthur and Quinapondan. In those locations,
markets are still functioning, even though on a smaller scale (reason behind being a mix of low
demand due to food relief and lack of money, blockages in the supply chain-delivery routes,
shortages of fuel and absence of electricity). Prices have rosen, rice price per kilo having increased
from 40pesos per kilo to 50pesos per kilo (25% increase), fresh fish price has increased from ....
Rice is rarely seen on markets and stocks are very low, the reason is not so clear, some traders
mentioned the low demand and others the problem of supplying the rice from regular suppliers. This
will need to be further assessed in the coming weeks.
Most food supplies being sold on the above-mentioned markets are locally procured or come from
the remaining stocks of the traders. Fresh fish and vegetables are seen in the markets, coming from
local fishermen and farmers. Affected households have reverted to selling pigs to get cash, as a
result pork meat is being sold on markets.
One kilo of fresh fish cost 100p/kg before the typhoon and has increased to 200p/kg since then.
When moving to cash for basic needs, agencies should think about support to traders recovery in a
form to be defined.
Hardware stores are open in Guiuan, General Mac Arthur and Borongan. In Guiuan, a big store has
been identified as being able to stock a considerable amount of material such as plight woods and
iron sheets, and the manager said restocking would not be an issue and would take a week, coming
from Manila. There are about 10 to 15 hardware stores in Guiuan, three only were open at times of
assessment. The small hardware shops visited in General Mac Arthur (they are about 6) can restock
within one day from Tacloban once their supplier reopen. They said they should reopen by
December the 2nd. They cannot stock big items but can provide small material such as nails,
hammers, shovels and saws in big quantities.
Commute (tricycle, jeepneys or vans) transportation costs have risen since the typhoon, by almost
three to four folds, rendering transportation to main markets expensive for affected housholds.
We can expect the markets in the area to recover and come back to the pre-typhoon situation
once Tacloban’s markets start to recover and when the fuel supplies wont be a problem anymore
(fuel stations functioning normally, which starts to happen).
A cash intervention for shelter material is desirable as a first phase response in order to allow
people choosing the material they need and want and to enable traders to re-start business as
well as having locally-adapted houses made of a mix of new material and salvaged material.
Financial institutions/money transfer mechanisms:
Banks, remittance companies and mobile phone money transfer are not functional or just partially.
The banks in Borongan and in Guiuan are still closed three weeks after the typhoon, the only bank
having partially reopened being the Phillipines National Bank in Borongan, but serving only its
customers.
Money transfer companies are not able to disburse cash to households as their system is not up and
running due to the absence of cellphone network and electricity, the pawnshops that have reopened
just ensure pawning.
Most of the affected households have the necessary paperwork to access these mechanisms, such as
ID cards or election cards, though it’s not 100% of them.
Some remittances companies could be used as a bank to transfer cash from one area to an another.