Mastering the art of helping helpless nations

I learned from my Facebook page that a dear friend, Mrs. June Keithley Castro succumbed to cancer last Sunday. I only met June Keithley twice, first when I was in Subic for our big bike trip, when her husband, the late ABS-CBN World Tonight anchor Angelo Castro (he died last April 2012) rang me up to invite me to their vacation home in Subic and I had a long chat with the Castro couple, reminiscing the days of  Radyo Bandido during the EDSA Revolt.

The second time we met was when June Keithley agreed to appear on my talkshow Straight from the Sky on Dec.13, 2012 in an interview that we showed on Dec. 26, 2012 about her documentaries of the Blessed Virgin Mary that was given a special slot on the Eternal Word Television Network. It was one great interview that I had with her especially that the request came from her. Back then, I already knew that Angelo was ill with cancer, but I never thought that June Keithley already had cancer.

Now June Keithley has joined her husband Angelo in the great beyond where there is no grief, no sorrow and just the joy of seeing the face of God. So may we request the pious reader to please pray for the repose of her soul.

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It is truly uplifting to hear that the leaders of the global community have offered additional aid to help rebuild the com-munities in Central Visayas that were devastated by Super Ty-phoon "Yolanda" (international code name Haiyan). I dare say that without the international relief effort by nations like the United States, Israel, South Korea, Switzerland, Sweden, Japan, Malaysia, Indonesia, Canada, Singapore, India, Germany and even China, sorry if I missed one nation or two but thank you just the same, things would have been far worse.

Apparently this global community of nations has already "mastered" the art of helping a beleaguered nation get back on its feet. This is because since the tsunami in Banda Aceh in December of 2004 to the earthquake that destroyed much of Haiti in 2010 and the Fukushima earthquake in April 2011 there were lessons that were learned that somehow our National Disaster Risk Reduction Management Council never cared to study nor cared to learn nor adopted, while the Western nations have learned much from these natural disasters on how to react quickly to those nations that get hit by an earthquake or a storm.

For instance, I gathered through my Facebook that there was a dog handler with a K-9 asset that was trained to track down survivors in search and rescue operations, especially for earthquake or typhoon related disasters where people may have been buried under rubble. These K-9 Search and Rescue teams need to be in the area within 24 hours of a disaster and so they offered their services to the government, but were refused. It just makes you wonder why some government official refused their help.

Because the 24-hour crucial period had already passed, this K-9 unit still went to Tacloban, but with a different mission. They were not out on a Search and Rescue mission, but rather their mission was to retrieve the dead. Just think…how many people could have survived in the first 24 hours if the K-9 Unit were allowed to do the job that they were trained to do?

In another heart-rending story, my good friend Mr. Andrew Co emailed me the story of 11-year old Rizza from Tacloban City who broke her leg at the height of the storm surge when Super Typhoon Yolanda struck. When news reach the friends of Rizza that a group called Medical Teams International, a Christian charity organization, set up a clinic in a nearby town, four boys carried her on their backs and walked five hours over rubble to reach the doctors in MTI.

Upon reaching the clinic, the MTI doctors realized the severity of her injury and drove her back to Tacloban City and businessman Philip Romualdez offered his personal helicopter and flew her to Cebu City where she is now at the Chong Hua Hospital. I heard that Dr. Leo Jiao, an orthopedic surgeon, will be operating on her leg today. Let's pray for the success of her operation. These are just some of the few gallant stories that we've gathered that showed the heroism of the Filipino in times of disaster.

Meanwhile, my son Capt. JV Avila who is with the Swiss Humanitarian Assistance Team came home for a few hours for a very short R & R and was back in Ormoc early morning yesterday. He reported to me that the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation part of which is the Swiss Humanitarian Aid Unit has apparently shifted gears. Instead of giving food aid, they are now sending building materials, G.I. sheets for roofing, complete with a handsaw, ropes, hammer & nails and gloves and distributing them to the needy families. Their target is 10,000 families. It may not be enough, but it is a huge effort that the Swiss people have done for our people.

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