I simply cannot ignore the fact that as this coulmn see print, it will be the 9th year of that unforgettable calamity. Every pen pusher and pundit real and otherwise, would write and describe the said event. That era that similarly separated the Triassic to the Jurassic or the Normal Calamity to that of Yolanda.

Today i take cudgels and publish a real Story of a friend who happen to be a DOUBLE AMPUTEE, a person who had lost both feet due to a vehicular accident. His name is Rinbert Emmanuel Martinez , and this is a story of fortitude and hope;
Surviving Haiyan.

Day 1: As usual, Tatay and I woke up around 4am and had coffee. Heavy rain was already coming along with the strong winds. I woke up my wife and 2 children who were with us so we could pray the rosary together after we secured our windows and doors. But the ceiling was already leaking water that I told Tatay to go inside our room because it was the safest area in the house. Without turning his back he muttered: Don’t go inside the water is here already. I did not realize then that flood had came in as I was on my wheelchair.

I looked at our jalousie windows and saw the water level outside was already half of our house. Tatay didn’t seem to know what to do at this point and may have been shocked to see what was happening. So I took charge and asked Tatay to try opening the main sliding door, but it didn’t budge. I asked my 14 year old eldest son to quickly open the kitchen door so we could escape outside, it was also stuck. At that moment I was already thinking that this is it, we will all perish as the water level was now waist deep and I was already swimming leaving my wheelchair behind. The water was swirling around like the inside of a washing machine. As I looked and thought for ways to save all of us I looked up our ceiling and saw the manhole with its cover flown away. I pointed it to Tatay and told them to catch a table that was floating around and put a chair on it so we could escape through the ceiling.

I told my 8 year old daughter to go up first then my wife, my eldest son went up after his mother. Tatay didn’t want to go up as he was concerned knowing I won’t be able climb with them. I convinced him, that between us two he was more likely to survive and take care of my family after this. And besides, I told him, I can swim and I’ll just join them when the water reaches the ceiling.

And I did just that. We were up there from 7am up to 10am when the water subsided. I asked everybody to jumped down while the water was still waist level to cushion their impact. But when it was my turn to come down, I have to rappel down using the electric wire in the ceiling. Mud was knee-deep and everything inside our home were in shambles.

We didn’t know what to do, where to start cleaning and how. We were in danger of being cut from the debris inside as we didn’t have footwear, pun intended. We managed to open our main door but couldn’t get out since by now our surroundings were full of debris. So we just collected and salvaged food and drinkable water inside the house to help survive the uncertainty ahead. I managed to get out of home around noon time and saw for the first time the devastation brought by Haiyan.

I stayed outside for quite a while wondering if things really happened or was this just a dream, I even managed to slap myself to be sure that I was wide awake and sane enough to understand what just happened to us.

While outside I saw a lot of ‘zombies’ who didn’t know where to go, many were crying looking for loved ones some I know asked me if we all survived and I asked the same of them. Around 1pm I saw our mayor going down the debris coming from their residence near the airport, with him was his wife, their 2 daughters and a bodyguard with a canine tagging along.

I shouted to him and asked him how he was, he muttered tearily “Pareho pareho tayo”. As he went down the debris there was a military truck on stand by and he asked the soldiers if he can bring them to city hall, a soldier refused telling only that their orders was to proceed to the airport. The mayor told him, with all these debris no vehicle can go through to the airport. So the mayor and company continued walking in disbelief( I learned later that Roxas and Gazmin were just ahead in the highway island fronting Coca-Cola plant).

Sometime in the afternoon I saw in the distance my dear friends Ruel & Divina Latoja, in tattered clothes and mismatched footwear, coming out of San Jose district. They were with their children Aine & Dindin but minus the youngest baby Raphael. I learned that they lost their only boy as they cling for their lives to the only wall that was left standing in their home a mere 50 meters away from the seashore.

After a quick conversation the family moved along heading to the nearest relative to seek shelter and help. We decided to stay put for the day and spend another night at home because we didn’t know the condition of the rest of Tacloban City. Many neighbors shared our home, one of the few houses left standing in ground-zero, for the night and most of them were mothers nursing babies and little children.

Two beds in our room were dry as it probably floated during the flood, these became the sleeping beds for Tatay and my own family. Me, I stayed in the sala with the people who took shelter with us and slept on an old ‘baol’. Around midnight there was chaos outside and people were shouting: tsunami.
(to be continued next issue)

YES, we have to be tough, with the toughness of charity, amid the unavoidable scandals in the world. Christ already warned us about this. “Things that cause sin will inevitably occur,” he said. (Lk 17,1) We should just be prepared for this condition in our life.

While those who cause scandals in others would be severely punished—”It would be better for him if a millstone were put around his neck and he be thrown into the sea than for him to cause one of these little ones to sin.” (Lk 17,2)—we should avoid reacting to these unavoidable scandals by falling into lack of charity.

If we have the charity that Christ commands us to live, we would know how to deal with these eventualities, willing to suffer and be patient while thinking of how we can help those who cause these scandals and those who are victimized by them.

As St. Paul said, true charity “does not rejoice over iniquity, but rejoices in truth. Charity suffers all, believes all, hopes all, endures all.” (1 Cor 13,7) It’s indeed a big challenge to live by that charity, but with God’s grace which we should always ask, we know that we can hack it.

What we should always do is to be most mindful of our words and deeds, because no matter how insignificant they may seem, we may already cause a scandal in others. And we also have to strengthen our defenses against scandals, so that instead of thinking badly, for example, of someone due to what we have seen or heard, we are ready to understand and help.

And scandal need not be in the sexual department only which is already a grave sin. It may only be a matter of gossip of any kind, as long as we cause another person to sin by thinking badly of someone or by leading him to have some critical thoughts, mental reservations, rash judgments, etc.

Of course, we have to distinguish between the temptation of scandal and the sin of scandal itself. Temptation is only temptation and is not yet a sin because we have not yet consented to it, though we may already be attracted to it. The sin of scandal is when we consent to the temptation and, worse, when we enjoy it and spread it around.

What we should always realize is we have a duty, as Christians, to always give good example to others. Not that we have to flaunt whatever good thing we have or do, doing some kind of virtue signalling, for Christ clearly said also that we should not show off our good deeds before men, to be seen by them, lest we lose our reward in heaven. (cfr. Mt 6,1)

We have to be aware that we always have to give good example to others for the sole purpose of leading others to God. It is to edify others, to encourage them to be holy and to pursue the path of sanctity in an abiding way.

This duty, therefore, should be carried out deliberately. It should somehow be planned and aimed at. It should not just be something incidental or something optional. Of course, this duty should not be done out of pride or vanity, but out of obedience to the will of God who wants to save all men. (cfr. 1 Tim 2,4)

The Philippine food security program will get much-needed boost with the Asian Development Bank (ADB) seeking a slice from the $14-Billion fund being allocated to help address the food crisis in Asia and the Pacific in 2022 till 2025.

The ADB director-general expects to present to the multilateral development bank’s board funding support to the Philippines food security program under the Competitive Agriculture Reform program started 2 years ago by ADB. The Bank’s management was quoted saying “:it is building on the Rice Tarification Act looking at the agriculture productivity in different parts of the country as a measure of food security.”

The $14-Billion being lent by the ADB is to help address the worsening food crisis as well as strengthen the country’s adaptation and mitigating efforts to climate change as it impacts in Asia and the Pacific areas. The worst scenario being to see its population “going hungry and falling into deeper poverty.”

ADB president emphasized on “factors contributing to the worsening food security crisis include supply chain issues from the pandemic, and the Russian invasion of Ukraine that has pushed food prices to record highs.” The situation had some countries in Asia and the Pacific to rely on imports of staples and fertilizers.

MY COMMENT:
Strongly suggesting for the Philippine government to study the mechanics on how to avail of the $14-Billion food security fund from the ADB. As regular route of natural calamities like typhoons, the Philippines has better chance of its food security program being favored by the ADB Board for approval.
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NEXT TOPIC : “MITA Appeals for Extension on Importation of Pork Tariffs”
SHARE S & T THOUGHS through E-mail: drpacjr@yahoo.com.

Two days after we left for Catbalogan due to the worsening stench in the air that we could no longer stomach, and exactly 5 days after super typhoon Yolanda struck, I decided to come back to the devastated city in hopes of still finding some things in our ruined and freshly flooded house that could still be useful.

It was not, by the way, an easy journey out. We had no plans of leaving Tacloban, though we were just surviving on a pack of wet biscuits that I scavenged from a grocery storehouse that fell apart near the airport. But on the third day since Yolanda came, a brother from Catbalogan, together with his son, took the pains of locating our house in an ocean of trash and debris. He was tearfully overjoyed when he finally found us, still alive, weakened by hunger and thirst, and still in a state of shock.

An older brother of mine that he is, he ordered us to abandon our house and go with him to Catbalogan and stay in their house there while Tacloban was yet in ruins, wallowing in the mud, covered with darkness at night, hungry and thirsty, and cut off from the rest of the world. We left San Jose, Tacloban City at around three in the afternoon under a mixture of alternating sunshine and rain.

Heaps of garbage and debris mixed with dead bodies of humans and animals constantly blocked our way as we laboriously traveled by foot to the area near the San Juanico bridge. Sometimes, we would try to hurdle mounds of trash from which human arms or legs were sticking out, particularly in Brgy. 87, San Jose area. Cadavers had piled up in some corners, such as in the Rotonda crossing, occasionally stirred by haggard-looking people walking to and fro without direction in search of their missing loved ones, their hairs, and clothes blown by the winds that smelt of death and decay.

I thought those were all the dead that were washed ashore, inland. I realized, when I came back to Tacloban, that there were more casualties that may not have been accounted for.
Together with two baggage boys that I hired from Catbalogan, and the owner-operator of the motorboat that I rented, I left Catbalogan at dawn on the 13th day of November 2013. We sailed through Maqueda Bay and passed by Daram Island, Villareal, and Talalora, till we reached the strait between Santa Rita, Samar, and Babatngon, Leyte. As we neared the San Juanico bridge, floating cadavers occasionally appeared. From this bridge up to the Anibong District, said cadavers increased in number such that, when we reached the narrow strait fronting Tacloban City, these lifeless bodies multiplied, indeed.

I came to realize that, when the seawater that the storm surge pushed inland returned to the sea, it had brought with it innumerable bodies of men, women, and children. When we docked on the shore of San Jose and walked down the footpath leading to our house, more and more bodies came into view, littering the field in great numbers.