Disease poses biggest threat after RP storms...

Disease is now posing the biggest threat to those who survived this week's savage storms which decimated large sections of the northern Philippines, health officials said.

With the number of dead and missing now exceeding 1,000, authorities are worried that some of the worstaffected areas could see outbreaks of infectious diseases such as gastroenteritis, cholera and hepatitis.

Ladislao Yuchongco, director of the health department's national health emergency management, told AFP Friday that his biggest concern now was with the survivors.

With some 95,000 people displaced by the storms and typhoons that swept across northern and northeastern Luzon this week, authorities were Friday rushing doctors and medical supplies to evacuation centres.

In some of the worst hit centres in Quezon province rescue workers were still struggling to bury the dead as the government issued an appeal for more body bags.

In the towns of Real, Infanta and General Nakar, 688 bodies have been found and at least 330 people still missing. Body bags are in short supply and many of the dead are now being buried in mass graves.

Rescue workers arriving in the towns Friday described the stench from rotting corpses as "unbearable."

Yuchongco, the health department official, said that in Real, Infanta and General Nakar some 400 bodies had been buried in mass graves. He said that although 200 body bags were sent into the area Friday they were not enough.

"Many have lost loved ones and many of the dead have been buried without being identified," he said.

"There is a problem of bacterial infections carried by flies, insects and rodents."

"Our biggest concern now is with those in the evacuation centres from influenza and pneumonia."

One doctor from an international relief agency said that in "disasters like this you need to bury the dead within 36 hours."

"The contamination of drinking water and the spread of diseases are always a problem in situations like this.

The problem is with the living and not the dead," said the doctor, who did not want to be named. Health Secretary Manuel Dayrit recommended Friday that all bodies be buried within 24 hours.

Around Real, many of the dead were being buried in makeshift graves and marked with wooden crosses until proper burials could be arranged. It is expected many of the bodies will be exhumed for identification once the emergency is over.

According to the World Health Organisation, dead bodies do not usually create a serious health hazard "unless they are polluting sources of drinking water with faecal matter or are infected with plague or typhus".

Health workers say that overcrowding of evacuation centres with many people sharing makeshift toilet and water facilities could lead to the spread of communicable diseases.

Yolanda Oliveros, executive assistant to the secretary of health, said evacuation centres were crowded with children and old people and the government was flying in doctors and medical supplies.

She did not give a figure as to how many people are now in the evacuation centres but said health department and social welfare department personnel were preparing the dead and moving them away from the centres for burial.

Hero priest dies while saving lives...

COTABATO CITY &emdash; Muslim and Christian residents of Midsayap, North Cotabato are readying a "hero's burial" for a priest who drowned last Monday while he was rescuing his parishioners from the flash floods that struck Infanta, Quezon.

Fr. Charlito Colendres, whose family hails from Midsayap, was supposed to celebrate his 18th year as a priest last Thursday. He had worked for years as a missionary in Infanta town.

Colendres graduated from the Notre Dame ArchdiocesanSeminary in Sultan Kudarat, Maguindanao. As a young seminarian, he was active in community outreach programs.

His younger brother Frank said their family wants him buried in Midsayap so he could be a model of community service for local Muslim and Christian residents alike.

"We are praying that his superiors in Quezon would allow his burial in Midsayap," Frank said, adding that they have accepted his brother's death as "God's will."

"He died serving the people, according to the context of his vocation. What is there to be sad about? It was God's decision to take him away," he said.

A long-time friend of Colendres, Dr. Vivencio Deomampo, a Midsayap councilor, said he is planning to author a resolution extolling the heroism of the priest.

"What is ironic is that, in most instances, we recognize the good works of our fellowmen only when they have departed. We are thankful and grateful for how a priest from a town in Mindanao sacrificed his life for his brothers in faraway Luzon," Deomampo said.

Midsayap Mayor Romeo Araña said they will observe a week-long mourning for the death of Colendres.

By John Unson