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