Army of angels

Last Saturday, Angel Brigade was going to close its doors. For nearly two weeks, it held fort at a borrowed showroom in Bonifacio Global City, acting as a conduit for donations and volunteers who immediately responded to the call to action in the wake of Ondoy. But the goods that had been coming in were starting to dwindle, and the organizers thought it was time to move on to medical missions and livelihood programs, in light of what seemed to be donor fatigue. The volunteers — from foreign exchange students, mothers and their young children, corporate employees, Bonifacio High Street runners to friends who just sort of became regulars — were all saddened. For nearly two weeks, they participated in something bigger than themselves, and now it was over.

A few of them gathered together for what they thought would be the last time, just to hang around and say their goodbyes. But around 3 p.m., a container van pulled up on the driveway. And another one. They were the relief goods from Cebu! The volunteers happily picked up where they left off, unloading, sorting, repacking, forming assembly lines. Calls for more hands were once again relayed over Facebook and Twitter. “It was the most full the space had ever been,” recalls Tisha Cruz-Bautista, one of the founders of Angel Brigade, still slightly in disbelief. “In many ways God was telling us our work was not yet over. There were no words that day, we were just so happy and grateful to be able to do this again.”

The Angel Brigade itself has turned into something bigger than just a relief center that took in your old clothes. It has become a real living network of volunteers, donors, truck owners, even military personnel, with a streamlined process of packing and deployment. The maximum number of volunteers at any given time should be between 30 to 40. With most of them in the line that fills the “happy bags” (biodegradable plastic ones from 7-Eleven), some in preparatory stations like rice repacking and others in a group that ties up the bags and puts them in boxes, 500 to 700 bags can be filled in an hour. As much as possible they try to leave the room empty, meaning that every item was put towards helping someone in need.

Ariel Roda, a co-founder and retired I.T. professional, points to a map of the Philippines on the wall, covered in colored push-pins. “We’ve served more than 15 communities, and were one of the first to ship to Pangasinan and Tarlac,” he says. “Right now we’re stockpiling and these will hopefully go to the north, unless there’s a call from around Metro Manila.” Roda could be described as the operations manager, if there were roles assigned to the loosely-defined yet tightly run core group of Angel Brigade. Among them are his wife Judith, who is in charge of buying the goods wholesale, Itos Carag, an ex-ranger who helps with transportation logistics and the occasionally needed military bodyguards, Katrina Holigores, who organizes the volunteers, and Bautista, who takes calls from the groups that need help, deciding where to deploy each batch of relief goods.

Despite the core group, its members, who take turns in shifts attending to the space, all insist that the Angel Brigade is everyone who has ever pitched in. It’s a mobile body of bodies who come together without asking for credit, without any religious bias and without any political party affiliation (they will in fact refuse donations if, say, some presidential candidate’s name is plastered all over the water bottles and noodle packs). Angel Brigade has become a force of individuals guided by the powerful drive of compassion and responsibility towards our fellow people.

The group officially started on the feast day of St. Michael the Archangel, hence its name, but as Holigores shares, “Angels exist in practically all religions so the name doesn’t isolate anyone’s spiritual preferences.” In fact, rather than associating them with fluffy, preachy angels who lull us to sleep, the image that probably resonates with the public is that of the warrior angel who shakes us awake with a call to arms. “The tragic effects of this calamity have stirred many people into action,” she says, “and although for a great many this will be a one-time thing, there will be many who will hopefully not go back to sleep.”

Angel Brigade has also gone viral: there will now be chapters in Cebu, Davao and Cagayan, put up by strangers who became volunteers who then became friends. While they may have started out taking things a day at a time, not knowing what tomorrow would bring, they have simultaneously learned to have faith in the moment and plan out long-term goals. They ran out of rice, and rice came; they prayed for sardines, and the sardines overfloweth (they have since learned to ask for a balance of blessings). And perhaps because of the miracle of the multitude, they can confidently forge ahead with the second phase of the brigade.

Phase Two transitions from basic relief work (though this will always be a component) to livelihood programs for survivors and their families. Women, for instance, can be trained to be haircutters or manicurists — services that require little startup and will always be of need in a community. With support from the Isdanco Foundation, of which Bautista is managing director, Phase Two aims to help people quickly rebuild their lives. As Luzon is still reeling from the effects of Ondoy and Pepeng, Phase One is definitely still in place, and will continue to strengthen its capabilities by connecting with people with rescue skills, i.e. rapelling or driving a motor boat.

Call it a shift in consciousness, or an effect of our highly mediated, highly connected network society — there’s just no way we can keep ignoring what’s happening in the world right now, much less our own front yard. There’s no way we can not see the suffering of others and not feel obligated to give back, especially if we have been spared. Volunteerism has struck a chord with people during these times because there was a need in us, a yearning that we did not know and a potential that we did not realize, until calamity struck. “The Angel Brigade is a real brigade,” Bautista says. “It’s a real group of dedicated people — strangers — convinced we are here to do the work of angels.”