100 Pinoys found safe in Haiti

MANILA, Philippines - Filipinos and other foreigners in various sections of Port-au-Prince, Haiti have been reached by rescue and relief authorities, and given relief assistance, the Department of Foreign Affairs said last night, citing reports from the peacekeeping force.

In his latest situation report, 10th Philippine Contingent commander Lt. Col. Lope Dagoy said that an initial census of Filipinos in the Delmas district was conducted. Some 100 Filipinos were identified and found to be safe, including two nuns with the ICM Sisters of Haiti.

Delmas is a district in Ouest Department of Port-au-Prince, where a sizeable number of Filipinos reside. The list was drawn from three areas: Delmas 31, Delmas 41 and Delmas 56. 

Last Saturday, community members were given rice, sugar, oatmeal and coffee. The relief team composed of UN peacekeepers was guided by Alan Martinez, treasurer of the Filipino community in Haiti.

The team was also able to reach Friday afternoon the group of Fely Tan (Chan) and Henry Reobuya, who earlier requested assistance due to peace and order concerns in their area.

Philippine Honorary Consul in Haiti Fitzgerald Brandt is helping coordinate efforts in responding to the needs of community members.

Meanwhile, efforts are ongoing to rescue Grace Fabian and Geraldine Lalican, who remain trapped under the rubble of the Caribbean Supermarket in Port-au-Prince.

A 40-person rescue team from the United States is at the collapsed four-story Caribbean Market and is helping in search and rescue efforts. 

The Philippine Peacekeeping Contingent requested the US military attaché’s office in Haiti to send the team. 

The leader of the rescue team informed the Philippine contingent that they heard tapping and other signs of life beneath the rubble.

Eighteen bodies have been retrieved from the collapsed headquarters of the Mission des Nations Unies pour la Stabilisation en Haiti (MINUSTAH),  

 including the remains of Mission Head Hedi Annabi, his deputy Luis Carlos, and Chinese Ambassador to Haiti Shulin Wang.

Extensive efforts to rescue other officials, personnel and affiliated individuals who are still unaccounted, including Filipino UN peacekeepers Sergeants Eustacio Bermudez, Pearly Panangui and Janice Arocena and Filipino UN civilian staff member Jerome Yap, continue. 

The Filipino community members in the Delmar district who were found to be in good health and safe condtion are:

1. MARIFLOR TUIBEO

2. NELSON LARDIZABAL

3. JOCELYN ORTIZ

4. PAUL WILLIAM USANA

5. RAMIL MACALINO

6. MELANIE M VILLAMIN

7. FRANK REPIZO

8. MARIA LUCIA REPIZO

9. KELLY MAY REPIZO

10. KYLE KENNETTE REPIZO

11. BRENDA TAMBO

12. DENNIS TAPAT

13. JONATHAN VILLA

14. LELAINE M VILLA

15. JONNA LEIGH VILLA

16. JOHN LLOYO VILLA

17. MORETO CASUYON

18. ADELINA MANALANSANG

19. BERWYN MANALANSANG

20. DANICA MANALANSANG

21. WENDYL MANALANSANG

22. ELINA A FELIPE

23. JOHNNY J CABE

24. GIL MERU

25. PATRICK GECANGAO

26. JOEL BRISTOL

27. DOMINADOR TIRU

28. NELSON BLANCO

29. ZOSIMO MELO

30. ANDY FRIAS

31. ALBINO VILLALBA

32. JOSELITO MANIULIT

33. DANTE REBANAL

34. ARNEL CARIAGA

35. RUBEN MARTINEZ

36. VENER MANING

37. ROBERTO CUNANAN

38. ARNEL BARRERA

39. CHRISTIAN DE ROXAS

40. RICKSON DAPASIN

41. FREDDIE DE ROXAS

42. SONNY MANING

43. SANDY MANING

44. RONIL MANING

45. RENATO PERA

46. RENE JORDAN

47. REY JORDAN

48. JOSEPH ALAMA

49. ZARINA FLOR

50. MOISES

51. ANGELITA AGUINALDO

52. RYZA BAGADIONG

53. JOAN SESPENE

54. CORAZON OBNIAL

55. RENATO BAGADIONG

56. RENELYN DE VERA

57. FERDINAND DE VERA

58. RIZALINO RAMIREZ

59. ALLZANA RAMIREZ

60. LOURDES CABALHIN

61. MANOLITO CABALHIN

62. DENNIS CABALHIN

63. AURORA AGUINALDO MEHLBAUM

64. ELENITA GRANADA

65. MA SANRIO GRANADA

66. JULIANE DEL ROSARIO

67. JOAQUIN TENA

68. OSCAR MENDOZA

69. MARY GRACE JOY GENARO

70. RICHARD PASAHOL

71. ISRAEL PASAHOL

72. LILIBETH MENDOZA

73. PRICILLA AGUINALDO

74. LEAH TABIGAY

75. ROSALYN FABIAN

76. SHERWIN MAGNO

77. FE LABALANDO

78. REMY VILLERO

79. ARIES MENDOZA

80. AGRIPINO CORNEJO

81. JOVEN CRUZ

82. BOY DURAN

83. PHILIP BENITEZ

84. MARICEL BENITEZ

85. JETRO BENITEZ

86. JANA BENITEZ

87. LILY SONICO

88. AURORA FERNANDEZ

89. FRANKIE BAGADIONG

90. DOLOR BAGADIONG

91. VAL BAGADIONG

92. ARIEL BAGADIONG

93. SHIELA DUBIOS

94. HENRY REOBUYA

95. LUCY TRINIDAD

96. FELY TAN

97. JUN BACURIN

98. DONNA BACURIN

99. SISTER HERMIE

100. SISTER INDEN

Hunger, hope, thirst and frenzy grip Haiti

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti – Precious water, food and early glimmers of hope began reaching parched and hungry earthquake survivors Saturday on the streets of this shattered city, where despair at times turned into a frenzy among the ruins.

“People are so desperate for food that they are going crazy,” said accountant Henry Ounche, in a crowd of hundreds who fought one another as US military helicopters clattered overhead carrying aid.

When other Navy choppers dropped rations and Gatorade into a soccer stadium thronged with refugees, 200 youths began brawling, throwing stones, to get at the supplies.

Across the hilly, steamy city, where people choked on the stench of death, hope faded by the hour for finding many more victims alive in the rubble, four days after Tuesday’s catastrophic earthquake.

Still, here and there, the murmur of buried victims spurred rescue crews on, even as aftershocks threatened to finish off crumbling buildings.

“No one’s alive in there,” a woman sobbed outside the wrecked Montana Hotel. But hope wouldn’t die. “We can hear a survivor,” search crew chief Alexander Luque of Namibia later reported. His men dug on.

Elsewhere, an American team pulled a woman alive from a collapsed university building where she had been trapped for 97 hours. Another crew got water to three survivors whose shouts could be heard deep in the ruins of a multistory supermarket that pancaked on top of them.

Nobody knew how many were dead. Haiti’s government alone has already recovered 20,000 bodies - not counting those recovered by independent agencies or relatives themselves, Prime Minister Jean-Max Bellerive told The Associated Press.

In a fresh estimate, the Pan American Health Organization said 50,000 to 100,000 people perished in the quake but Bellerive said 100,000 would “seem to be the minimum.”

Truckloads of corpses were being trundled to mass graves.

A UN humanitarian spokeswoman declared the quake the worst disaster the international organization has ever faced, since so much government and UN capacity in the country was demolished. In that way, Elisabeth Byrs said in Geneva, it’s worse than the cataclysmic Asian tsunami of 2004: “Everything is damaged.”

Also Saturday, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton flew to Port-au-Prince to pledge more American assistance and said the US would be “as responsive as we need to be.”

President Obama met with former Presidents George W. Bush and Bill Clinton and urged Americans to donate to Haiti relief efforts.

As the day wore on, search teams recovered the body of Tunisian diplomat Hedi Annabi, the United Nations chief of mission in Haiti, and other top UN officials who were killed when their headquarters collapsed. – Rainier Allan Ronda, AP