What a relief!

What a relief that super Typhoon Pepeng spared crowded and still suffering Metro Manila (but let’s help and pray for those hit in the northern Luzon area).

What a relief that relief goods continue to pour in from generous souls.

What a relief that there are tireless volunteers who donate their time to help repack these relief goods.

Since last week, parts of the posh GMA 7 complex in EDSA had started to look like war zones. There are people everywhere. Boxes and boxes of assorted items continue to be brought in and these come out all sorted out in neat individual packages. (I was told the bigger operations are done at the Kapuso foundation warehouse in Tandang Sora where there are even more relief goods and even more volunteers.)

But given the number of people who felt (and continue to feel) the wrath of nasty Ondoy, the relief goods are not enough (please send in some more). The same goes for volunteers.

While there are undeniably a lot of people volunteering to repack items, most of them show up in the morning. The number dissipates starting at 8 p.m. and after midnight there are fewer and fewer people — and you can’t blame them because they, too, have their own lives (most of them hold on to regular jobs) and have to rest.

Thursday night, I sought the area with the least number of volunteers. This was at the basement of the less than a year old GMA building (the one closest to the MRT station). They were repacking grocery items — basic things we need in our everyday lives. The set-up was like an assembly line. A plastic bag is passed around and somebody is assigned to put in laundry and bath soap, while the next one will stuff it with toothbrush, cleaning agents and the next one, diapers and even sanitary napkins. My assignment was to tie the bag and that required four knots. I had to be taught initially how to do that because in grade school I never signed up to be a boy scout.

There was camaraderie all around and it was fun. But idle chatter was not allowed. No, there was no marshal who was going to drag you to the principal’s office for talking unnecessarily and misbehavior. There simply was no time to talk because everything worked with clockwork precision and if you stopped to chat, you disrupt the entire system. Of course, somebody could cover for you, but why let that happen?

Besides, once you’ve started, it’s difficult to stop — everything becomes automatic. However, you can’t work like some mindless robot. There were times when I felt that something went amiss. Like a human weighing scale, you know at once that an item or two had not been stuffed in without even peeking into the bag. And so you send it back and the missing item(s) are put in right away. The mistake is corrected without finger pointing. It’s already expected that somebody would miss a beat from time to time and this happens to those who just got in and still learning the ropes or those who had overstayed their shift.

If the volunteers were tired, however, they were allowed to rest — or pack up and go if their bones were already aching, especially since some worked from 6 a.m. to 6 a.m. of the following day.

But everyone was thankful that they were fed well. There was food galore — packed meals for breakfast, lunch and dinner. There was bread on hand at all times and bottled water was constantly being passed around.

At the repacking station for old clothes one night, there were even Krispy Kreme doughnuts. No, the clothes aren’t exactly easier to repack because handling fabric can be quite tricky. Some textiles leave you feeling itchy, while others make you sneeze.

And yes, there were the soiled clothes — even used undergarments — that you handle by holding your breath. Good luck to the recipient.

But God bless that donor who sent boxes and boxes of unused collared shirts — all in grey. Apparently, these are old stock, but never mind — everything is still so useful. All it needs is a good single washing and it’s like you have a brand-new shirt.

Repacking old clothes is less stressful because we get to talk since we are in a circle with the mountain of used clothing in the middle. This was where I was able to make a profile of the volunteers. Everyone is mostly young — students who instead of enjoying their one-week of no classes strolling in the mall wisely and generously spent their time there.

There were also professionals from various agencies — both private and government. Last Saturday, when I scoured the sea of faces in the area where they repack rice (one of the most difficult chores), I saw a woman on the floor with the familiar white-rimmed eyeglasses. She was scooping rice into a basin like everyone else and when I checked closely, it was lawyer Annette Gozon-Abrogar, president of GMA Films. I was doing Startalk live that time and I dragged her to the nearby Studio 3 so that she could give us an update on the network’s relief operations and, more importantly, to appeal for more donations because as I write this, there are still flood victims who need help.

Those who can’t give relief goods can be volunteers because there is still so much work to do. Personally, I take my hats off to the GMA 7 maintenance staff — the janitors and janitresses who keep our offices and studios clean. They do their volunteer work during their off-hours when they should be home resting.

During the early hours of last Saturday, there was this batch of maintenance people who said that they were staying there until 6 a.m. — to sleep so that they could be back on duty at 11 a.m. They didn’t care if no-show Pepeng (thank heavens for that!) was threatening to hit Metro Manila and everyone else had gone to the safety of their homes. It was a sacrifice they gladly did just so they could help the hapless victims of destructive Ondoy.

Just when I thought this country was hopeless, it amazed me to discover that there are still a lot of kind and selfless people this side of the world.

What a relief!