Overseas Filipinos generate worldwide sympathy

Citizens from places like Tel Aviv in Israel and many parts of the world from Asia to Europe and any place else where overseas Filipino workers are located are choked with overwhelming compassion for the victims of Typhoon Yolanda (International codename: Haiyan) especially the hardest hit areas in Central Visayas. Reports from international news networks like CNN, BBC, Al Jazeera, The Guardian, etc. about the death toll, the massive destruction and pitiful condition of survivors – many of whom are immediate families and relatives of OFWs – have generated a lot of sympathy, prompting foreign private groups and governments to find ways to help in any way they can.

OFW umbrella groups are launching fund drives and sending cash donations while millions have been pledged or donated for relief and humanitarian efforts. People are asking where they can send cash or goods, and CNN’s list of legitimate aid organizations is very useful. Clearly, “there are always scammers looking to profit from disasters.” Better to check an organization’s credentials first. 

The death toll so far has been placed at over 3,000 as of this writing while more than a million people have been displaced – many of them needing food, water, medicine, clothes. Rich or poor, young or old, Filipinos are doing their part to help alleviate the overwhelming misery that seems to have draped the affected areas like a dark blanket. School kids are giving their time packing relief items, companies are cancelling their Christmas parties and foregoing gift giving to donate the amounts to aid organizations. Big corporations are mobilizing their resources to help in rehabilitation efforts, like the Manny V. Pangilinan group that is organizing soup kitchens, mounting communication centers, and donating millions for relief and rehabilitation.

Bobby Ongpin’s Alphaland Corp. is utilizing the company’s Cessnas and Jetstreams because these aircraft can reach far-flung and short airstrips which have been bypassed by the major relief operations in cities.  We’re told that 20 flights so far have already been mounted to deliver relief goods to Guiuian, Ormoc and many areas in the Visayas. Over 10 tons of goods have already been delivered, with Alphaland’s hangar turned into a warehouse where relief items are dropped off. Friends from abroad have donated $120,000 for victims, and considering the cost of aviation fuel, Alphaland’s relief activities are nearing the P30-million mark. Employees and executives of local arms manufacturer Arms Corporation of the Philippines also prepared relief packages containing water, canned goods, instant cup noodles, biscuits and even candles at their factory in Marikina (shown in photo) for shipment to the newly-constructed Armscor Shooting Center indoor range in Cebu City which now serves as a drop-off point for donations. Leyte 1st District Representative Martin Romualdez informed us that the Remedios Trinidad Romualdez Medical Foundation is providing medical aid for thousands of survivors in need of medicine and treatment. Benguet Corp. is also using its own funds to donate to rehabilitation efforts and also mobilizing its barges, aircraft and other logistical assets for relief operations.

No doubt all the efforts to help are heartwarming but it’s clear we are a country that does not have the kind of logistics to cope with a disaster of this magnitude, and for sure, the government is just so grateful to have allies like the US that is sending in the super carrier USS George Washington along with supply ships and cruisers as well as choppers and other aircraft from Carrier Air Wing Five that can perform various functions including disaster relief operations. We’re told the USS George Washington is the same ship that participated in the disaster relief operations after the 2011 earthquake and tsunami that hit Japan.

Massive amounts of money will be needed to rehabilitate the areas that have been literally flattened by the monster typhoon, and it will take a very long time before survivors can fully recover from the horrific devastation physically, emotionally and psychologically, but everyone is hoping that any donation they can give, no matter how small, can help tide the survivors over one meal at a time. One can only imagine the kind of ordeal that survivors are going through, especially those who could only look on helplessly as their loved ones were carried away – right before their eyes – by the deadly force of the massive storm surge that obliterated several villages.

Many who watched the emotional interview of Naderev Saño, a member of the Climate Change Commission, couldn’t help but shed tears as he appealed to nations to help stop the climate crisis which he described as “madness.” Saño, whose family hails from Tacloban, said he will not touch any food for the rest of the 12-day UN climate change conference in Poland “in solidarity with my countrymen who are now struggling for food back home” – like his brother who has been “gathering bodies of the dead with his own two hands.”

The aftermath of this tragic disaster is not likely to be forgotten by Filipinos especially the victims who are reeling from the loss of their loved ones – even entire families – as they can only cry out to heaven for help. Sometime ago, I received a very touching e-mail from someone who went through a devastating “tragedy” which I want to share with our readers on what emotional pain can do – “Every night I cry myself to sleep until I have no more tears to shed. In the morning when I wake up, I look out my window. I see raindrops – but actually, it’s the tears in my eyes. I ask God, when will this pain go away? I hear no answer. I ask Him to please take me away.”

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