The Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) is ready to dispatch another batch of peacekeepers to Haiti to join the rescue operations in quake-devastated Haiti.

AFP spokesman Lt. Col. Romeo Brawner said 155 members of the 11th Peacekeeping Contingent are now assembled at their headquarters in Tarlac Province, north of Manila, awaiting a government order to leave.

Philippine President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo has already ordered AFP chief Gen. Victor Ibrado to prepare the 11th contingent for deployment to Haiti. They would link up with the 10th contingent there, Brawner said.

The AFP expressed hope that the three unaccounted Filipino soldiers trapped underneath the rubble of the collapsed Christopher Hotel in the capital Port Au Prince are still alive.

Brawner quoted a commander of the 10th Peacekeeping Contingent in Haiti as saying that rescuers have been hearing voices and other signals coming from inside the collapsed United Nations Stabilization Mission, a five-story hotel that served as the UN main peacekeeping headquarters.

He said the Filipino soldiers, along with their foreign counterparts, have yet to get through the rubble of the collapsed building due to lack of disaster and rescue equipment in the area.

Aside from search and rescue operations, the Philippine peacekeepers in Haiti have been deployed to secure vital areas to prevent looting due to temporary lack of food supplies and other commodities.

President Arroyo also ordered the Department of Health (DOH) to deploy medical teams to Haiti. DOH director for Health Emergency Management Staff Carmencita Banatin, on the other hand, said they are preparing to dispatch the medical team of 20 health professionals before Monday.

(Xinhua News Agency January 16, 2009)