Thursday, November 14, 2013

The Blame Game Begins


No one could have prepared for this. If the President ordered the whole of Leyte evacuated, everyone would have thought he's crazy. And even then, Yolanda would have gone easily north to Samar or south to Mindanao.

In the same way, no disaster relief operation will ever be satisfactory. Even if we have 300 C130s on standby, there will still be at least one old lolo we cannot reach on time. And you and I will still be up in arms for the sake of that one lolo. And that is understandable.

It's never quick enough, never prepared enough, never coordinated enough. It was never so for the US, for Haiti, for Bali, for Japan and it will never be for any other country. People have died and are dying, and you and I are frustrated. We want someone's head to roll for this. And guess who's head is the easy target?

You and I are trying to make sense of this calamity by looking for a villain. There has to be one, right? It has to be the President, right?

It's not. And the sooner you and I get over that fact, the better we can cope with the reality that no person will have the singular honor of being blamed for this mess.

Monday, November 11, 2013

Repacking Best Practices

Click for a big picture
I've seen how relief goods are being repacked all over the city and I think efficiency can be improved. Even the Philippine Red Cross near Fuente says it's having a very hard time with repacking. I'm not the best Process Engineer, but I have a simple 3-step process proposal for repacking relief goods. There are so much donations coming in, but if we don't address this crucial part of the relief operations, it will just be a bottleneck.


You can tweak the process however way you want. Obviously, variations on this process will depend on the number of volunteers you have and what kind of final product (relief box) you are thinking of. I think we will have to get inputs from those who are really on the field to know which configurations work best when handing out packs to those who need it.

I also think the Segregator role can still be improved. I imagine it might be a bottle neck, and I'm willing to give that role to the donors themselves. As long as the Segregator's flow does not go in the way of the Packer, it should be fine.

Process Improvement Engineers, please help of ways to improve this please.

Thursday, November 07, 2013

Hopeful Leyteños



Hopeful Leyteños assembled for a chance to ride a military C130 flight to Leyte this morning today in Cebu City. The unmistakable sound of the Waray dialect filling the hall -- strong, deliberate syllables in rapid succession. Everyone looked so tired, undoubtedly from lack of sleep. Some eyes still red from crying from hearing news that comes in trickles. These are our brothers and sisters. Their hearts are broken and ours break too. Yet not for long, the time for sweet homecomings will be soon.

Godspeed, our friends. We send you not only medicines, bags of grocery and bottles of water, but also our heartfelt prayers and caring thoughts. God will rebuild your quiet cities, our brave neighbors from the east. Hug your families for us.