#mindinao

New York City: Event with Norma Capuyan, Indigenous leader from Mindinao, Philippines, March 18, 2014

"We are honoring and celebrating the growing resistance of the people in confronting human rights violations and large foreign mining companies that is taking away our people's land and displacing them. We will continue to fight against this imperialist system and build our people power until we win the freedom and liberation of our people! Makibaka! Hwuag Matakot! Fists up!"

 #gabrielausa #gabrielanewyork #nychrp

Prayers go out to all in the Philippines, especially in the areas of Mindinao, Cagayan de Oro and Iligan. 

ILIGAN, Philippines (Reuters) - Philippine President Benigno Aquino ordered an investigation on Tuesday into flash floods and landslides that sent mud and logs crashing down on residents, killing about 1,000 people on a southern island.

  The national disaster agency said 957 were killed and 49 missing on Mindanao after Typhoon Washi triggered the slides. Most of the casualties were in the cities of Cagayan de Oro and Iligan and tens of thousands remain homeless, many sheltering in evacuation centres.

Aquino met officials in the two cities worst hit by the cascades that swept down mountainsides as residents of riverside and coastal villages slept in the early hours of Saturday.

"First priority is to relocate to areas that no longer pose a danger to them," Aquino told a meeting in Cagayan de Oro, issuing instructions to implement disaster mitigation programmes, including reforestation.

He later told a gathering at a school: "We have no desire to engage in finger-pointing or to assign blame at a time like this. Yet, we have an obligation to find out exactly what has happened."

Aquino said he had formed a task force to investigate the reasons behind the disaster and to determine whether a nationwide logging ban had been violated.

He declared a state of national calamity, a move intended to release greater funding, and ordered the speedy restoration of power and drinking water supplies in all affected villages.