Tacloban will rise again

TACLOBAN – There are crude hand-made posters all over the devastated city expressing hope that the once bustling Leyte capital will rise again.  â€œTindog Tacloban” “Bangon Tacloban” “Rise Tacloban” and “We Love Tacloban” are slogans that depict the undying spirit of a people determined not to allow themselves to be broken by a natural calamity.

Kenneth Uy, a local businessman who used to promote PBA games here, is doing his share in trying to restore normalcy.  His kitchen is selling bread at P2 a piece, almost at cost, while others are taking advantage of the situation by upping the price to P5 each.  Power is slowly being brought back but it’s limited to certain streets downtown.  In the barangays and interior streets, homes are still without electricity.  Commerce is grinding slowly.  The Jollibee place is closed because of disrepair but a rolling store in a truck has opened to put Champ and Chicken Joy back in circulation.

The City Convention Center, formerly known as the Astrodome, is now a refuge center.  The roof has large patches of missing parts.  The once pristine hardwood is gone.  The court is now just a layer of cement with the wood warped out of shape and washed away.  Over 2,000 people slept in the facility for days.  Now, they’re in tents provided by foreign agencies surrounding the stadium.

Six weeks after the storm, the stench of decomposed bodies has dissipated but the smell is still sadly in the air. Blackwater Sports team owner Dioceldo Sy visited the city three weeks ago and came back the other day, noticing a 200 percent improvement in the streets.  â€œWhen we landed three weeks ago, the airport was a mess,” he recalled. “I understand the US cleaned up the airport and now, at least the runway is cleared of mud and dirt.  The terminal building is still in disarray but it’s slowly being rehabilitated.”

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A private institution that has provided considerable assistance is the Tzu Chi Buddhist Foundation of Taiwan.  Brando Bernadas, the city’s political affairs consultant, said the organization has given out at least P500 Million in cash. “They came from Bohol where they did relief operations for earthquake victims,” he said.  â€œThey arrived here quietly, all they want to do is to help. They mobilized residents from inner barangays for a clean-up drive.  They paid P500 for each worker a day and must have given out P100 Million.  They also gave cash of P8,000 to P10,000 to P12,000 for each family, depending on the size, and that budget must have been at least P400 Million.  They also gave 25 kilos of rice per family when the government gave only five kilos. We were surprised why the DSWD complained that Tzu Chi was giving P500 in the cash-for-work program.  The DSWD wanted to limit it to P260.  We couldn’t understand why help to the people was being curtailed.”

Bernadas said excavating corpses from the debris was an arduous task.  â€œMalaysia provided censors and the US brought in canine sniff dogs and other gadgets,” he said.  â€œKorea also sent in people and equipment.  The UN, US Aid, Turkey, New Zealand and China have been extremely helpful. The support from foreign governments and private organizations is overwhelming.  They’ve given us hope.”

City administrator Atty. Tecson Lim said the disaster has brought the local economy to a virtual standstill.  â€œWe expect at least an 80 percent cut in our city budget because of the shortage of inflows,” he said.  â€œBusiness will be down.  Where will we generate the P400 Million deficit?  Mayor (Alfred) Romualdez wants to rebuild Tacloban not just to how it was before but better, with townships, zones.  It’s our chance to construct a new city, something we can leave behind our children and their children.  We know we can do it.  His timetable is two years but that’s because he wants it done as quickly as possible. Mayor Alfred knows it will take longer. If we all work together, we can make things happen.”

Anywhere you go in the city, you hear horror stories. The parents of a TV producer were killed in their home by the sea.  A survivor climbed the steps to the top of the City Hall when he saw a dark cloud approaching.  The cloud turned out to be a 20-foot wave of raging waters that slammed into houses and buildings.  Vehicles were upturned over and over in the swirl of the storm.  A dredger found itself in the backyard of a bottling plant. Families were separated as the waters barged into homes, leaving a trail of lifeless bodies and weeping survivors. Concrete power posts were split in half.  Cement walls were torn down.

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Two weeks after the typhoon, bodies were still being recovered.  Corpses were laid out on sidewalks and along streets, some covered by blankets, others only by banana tree leaves.  Several bodies were crumpled up, indicating a struggle against drowning.  The sight told the tale of tragedy, sadness and death.

Still, there is hope.  In a barangay where boxing hero Manny Pacquiao visited, the Yolanda survivors put up signs saying “We Will Win This Fight … Laban Tacloban” “Laban Pacquiao” and “Mabuhay!  Manny Pacquiao ‘Pambansang Kamao.’”  In another district, resourceful residents created a Christmas tree made up of empty soft drink bottles, paper, ribbons, wire, sticks and broken things and had the words “Tindog Tacloban” at the base.

Sy said he was drawn to Tacloban by his and his wife Khristine’s close friendship with Mayor Romualdez’ wife Cristina.  He also knows Kenneth Uy who calls him Uncle Dioceldo.  His daughter Denice, the second of seven children, flew in from the US where she is studying at the University of California at Berkeley, the day before the trip to Tacloban and wanted to see for herself the damage.  Denice, a graduating business administration major, collected about $7,000 from fund drives in the Berkeley campus for Yolanda victims.  Sy donated a P1.8 Million payloader for the Tacloban city government to use in the clearing and cleaning campaign.  He is also donating 50 tents early next year.  The tents are arriving from China.

Anil Buxani of Sonia Trading donated 36 Molten basketballs to Sto. Nino assistant parish priest Fr. Amado Alvero and Ateneo star Kiefer Ravena gave P50,000 that was raised from a charity basketball game, also to the priest.  The money will be used to run a youth basketball tournament as a way to buoy up the morale of the kids in the city.  Make no mistake about it, Tacloban will rise again.