Via Smart's free calls, internet services, Yolanda evacuees reconnect with families

CEBU, Philippines - Homeless, hungry, and concerned for her daughter who was then about to give birth, 47-year-old Marina Arias left her hometown of Tacloban for Cebu on a government plane two days after super typhoon Yolanda destroyed her home and thousands of other houses in Eastern Visayas.

She took her husband, pregnant daughter, son, and grandson but had to leave another child and several grandchildren behind.

Arias and her family found shelter at the Barangay Tinago gym in Cebu City. There, they do not lack for food, water, and even clothes.

At the start of their stay in Tinago, Arias said she couldn't help but worry over the son, with his wife and three kids, she left behind.

Her daughter, who had given birth to a son in a Cebu City hospital, kept sending text messages to her brother until, several days after, they finally received a reply.

"I was very happy when we learned they are okay. We are in constant contact with them through text and they tell me what they need, either clothes or food. I save from what we are given here and I send some to them," she said in Cebuano.

Arias, a Smart subscriber, reached her son in Tacloban when the company's mobile coverage was restored in the area a few days after Yolanda.

Five days after the super typhoon, Smart was able to restore its mobile network in most cities and municipalities of  Leyte, Samar, Cebu, Bohol, Guimaras, Iloilo, Negros Occidental, Negros Oriental, Aklan, Antique, Capiz, and Biliran.

In areas where network restoration was still ongoing in the days following the typhoon, Smart immediately set up satellite phones for Libreng Tawag services and to help expedite humanitarian efforts.  Smart and Vodafone Foundation also set up the portable cell site, Instant Network, in Borongan and Guiuan in Eastern Samar, and Palo in Leyte to provide emergency communications while network services are still being restored.

As of December 8, or a month after Yolanda made landfall, network coverage in all affected towns and municipalities has been restored as Smart engineers worked round the clock to expedite restoration efforts.

"Establishing first-line communications is our priority in the hardest hit areas where network restoration is still underway. This instant network will help the government and humanitarian agencies in fast tracking coordination from the ground," said Ramon R. Isberto, Smart Public Affairs Group head.

Another evacuee staying at the gym, Deorico T. Cabuello Jr., is from Samar but had been working at a restaurant in Tacloban for two years when Yolanda devastated the city center.

Cabuello said he barely survived Yolanda and was given priority on a flight out of Tacloban because of a deep gash above his left eye caused by a GI sheet.

He had been estranged from his father for many years and was therefore surprised to learn from a cousin that his family in Samar reported him missing and was looking for him.

"I have no contact with them so what I did was log on to my Facebook account and posted a status that I'm well and in Cebu," he explained in Tagalog.

Separated from their loved ones by the super typhoon that decimated Tacloban City and affected other parts of Leyte and the Visayas, Arias, Cabuello, and many evacuees living in Tinago and other areas in Cebu were able to reconnect and keep in touch with other family members through the free calls and Internet made available in the evacuation centers.

Immediately after Tinago took in evacuees from Leyte, Smart Communications, Inc. (Smart) provided free calls and Internet connection to provide those sheltered at the barangay gym the means to assure their families back in Tacloban and other areas of the country or even abroad that they are OK.

Similar LibrengTawag services were put in place in the military bases of Mactan in Cebu and Villamor in Metro Manila to help evacuees get in touch with their loved ones.

Dennis Arciaga, Tinago barangay councilor, said many other evacuees from Tacloban called up relatives in Cebu immediately after arriving in Tinago. The evacuees are now staying with relatives but are still given relief assistance from the donations that arrive at the barangay.

Like Tacloban, Bantayan in Cebu took the full brunt of Yolanda's super strong winds. The island is made up of the municipalities of Sta. Fe, Madridejos, and Bantayan.

Councilor Edgardo Layese of the town of Bantayan said he remembered that the last message he sent before Yolanda battered the island was to inform his child in Cebu City that the winds had gotten very strong. It was 8:30 a.m. on the Friday that Yolanda hit.

On Saturday night, Layese added, they were able to correct misleading information posted on Facebook saying the gym had been destroyed and that 400 people who took shelter there had died.

They were able to send their messages from an area at the Sta. Fe port reached by Smart's mobile coverage in the nearby towns of Tabuelan and Tuburan.

"We were able to relay the correct updates to people waiting for news about Bantayan," he cited.

With the available mobile network, Layese said their first move was to provide an immediate status of the town and the needs of the people who were affected.

Assistance immediately came in and town officials were able to distribute relief goods the day after the super typhoon devastated the island, he added. Access to information allowed the Municipal Government to compile a list of badly hit barangays and affected residents as well as the number of relief assistance coming in.

Layese said private groups who came to Bantayan bringing donations can look at the list and see which areas were still in dire need of help.

Another evacuee from Tacloban, Liel Philip, said they were living near the airport in Tacloban before the storm surge washed away their home and everything they had.

When she and her two children boarded the plane to Cebu to be with her daughter working there, they only had the clothes on their back.

In Cebu, she worried over her two other children in Samar and had no means of reaching them.

A series of mobile calls that went from Calbayog in Samar to Manila and then finally Cebu brought the good tidings that her children in Samar are fine.

Philip said it was a sibling in Manila who gave her an update on her children.

The information was passed on by another sibling who visited Calbayog to check on the situation of their relatives there. An aunt in Calbayog relayed the good news about Philip's children.

GSMA, the global association of telecommunication operators, said communication is critical in disaster efforts, citing that "when you restore the mobile network, you rebuild the human network."

In Philip's case, the road to reconnecting with her children in Samar took a circuitous route and a series of mobile connections but it was by no means any less welcome. (FREEMAN)