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MANILA -- The Philippine Air Force (PAF) has been placed on standby for an expected flight to bring a Filipino humanitarian contingent to cyclone-ravaged Myanmar, where foreign access has been limited by its reclusive military authority.
PAF chief Lieutenant General Pedrito Cadungog told the Philippine Daily Inquirer Thursday that the Air Force has received an order from the military headquarters to draft a flight plan and determine flight time to Myanmar capital Rangoon.
“To us, this is considered an order already although there is no official letter to that effect, only a verbal instruction from higher headquarters,” Cadungog said when asked if the Air Force has received word of the government's plan to fly a medical mission to the Southeast Asian neighbor.
President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo ordered on Wednesday the composition of a 15-member medical team to attend to typhoon evacuees in Myanmar (formerly Burma), where the death toll is expected to climb from current varying estimates already in the tens of thousands.
Official state media in tightly-controlled Myanmar have put the number of dead and missing at more than 60,000.
PAF is still awaiting advise on the departure date and the contingent's composition, said Cadungog.
On estimates of the Cebu-based 220th Airlift Wing, PAF's C-130 Hercules could fly direct from Manila to Rangoon in five hours and 17 minutes. Should the flight push through, it would be the first time a Philippine military plane would land in Myanmar in recent memory, Cadungog said.
The C-130, PAF's versatile cargo plane used in combat, resupply and transport missions, had been used for local relief operations and overseas disaster response alike. In May 2006, one of PAF's three C-130s flew to Yogyakarta, Indonesia to carry aid and 20 medical workers to tsunami-hit communities.
Once the Air Force is given the go signal for takeoff in Manila, Cadungog said the PAF would arrange with Myanmar to get clearance for landing in Rangoon.
He is expecting the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) to help PAF arrange the Myanmar landing as well as clearance for overflights through foreign air space where the humanitarian flight will pass through.
“We will use the commercial airway, so we have to ask clearance to fly over other countries where the plane would pass through. But the fact that the DFA will help us, it will be easy ... as long as Myanmar authorizes us,” said Cadungog.
Other international aid agencies have been having a hard time penetrating the devastated nation, among the poorest in Southeast Asia, as junta-ruled Myanmar has been restrictive in issuing visas to foreign nationals.
Philippine nationals however may enter without a visa being Myanmar’s fellow member-state in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations.
Even given Myanmar’s unpredictable security situation, Cadungog felt no need to send a security team along with the medical contingent as the Philippine mission would be purely humanitarian.
“We don't need a security contingent because we are not going there to address the enemies within the country,” he said.
