After the storm

Much has been done, but so much more needs to be done.

That, in sum, is the state of rehabilitation work in Yolanda-affected areas. One year after the monster storm lashed the Visayas, we hear stories of joy and hope, of families getting a new start in life, of communities picking up and rebuilding, of love even among the ruins. And yet there are reports of people still without homes, living in tents and temporary shelters without power, families barely scraping by because they cannot find work, children with no school to go to. 

With devastation as widespread and massive as that wrought by Yolanda, it will unfortunately take time for the more than 3.4 million families in nine regions to be able to rebuild or get new homes and resume livelihood. It took a year to make the assessments and craft a masterplan – known as the Yolanda Comprehensive Rehabilitation and Recovery Plan – involving more than 25,000 projects that will cost nearly P168 billion. At last week’s Cabinet meeting on Yolanda rehabilitation, the government committed to finish 30 percent of these projects by yearend, 50 percent next year and the remaining 20 percent the year after.

It is, without doubt, an ambitious plan and an ambitious timeline. The best of intentions run up against complications. Organizations that have pledged to build houses – and there are many such groups – first have to find and acquire the land to build the houses on, in safe areas away from danger zones that are prone to floods and storm surges.

But rebuild we must, and public and private sectors have to get together to do this. The Philippine Disaster Recovery Foundation is one partnership that has hopefully found the right formula to make this happen, and we are happy to share their story, as well as other stories of recovery after the storm.

Incidentally, the PDRF has come up with a program to make this year’s Yuletide gift-giving more meaningful, with gifts that will change the lives of not just a person but an entire family or community.

“With the Christmas season upon us, the Philippine Disaster Recovery Foundation is offering a number of packages as Christmas presents. They carry the added value of helping the survivors of last year’s calamities. You can choose to give a family clean drinking water, solar-powered lighting, a Noche Buena, a computer or even a transitional house. Or you can give a community a mangrove nursery to protect them from a storm, a library for their school or a satellite TV package so they can watch TV for a year. Christmas has always been our favorite holiday. Helping victims of disasters live a better life makes Christmas that much more meaningful.”

Among the packages are a Butterfly house for P68,000; a school library for P50,000; a desktop computer for P25,000; a mangrove nursery (100 mangroves and beach front seedlings) for P20,000; a year’s pre-paid subscription to Cignal satellite TV for a community for P12,778; a solar lighting system for P10,000; a water filtration system for P5,000; a Noche Buena package for P2,500.

Contact the PDRF to give a gift that keeps on giving.