It is indeed appalling and frustrating to see how people continue to suffer living in tents four months after super typhoon Yolanda. The bulk of assistance had been overwhelming that people are mesmerized by the gargantuan support that in conservative estimation had surpassed the extent of devastation. Victims who survived the wicked blows of the supertyphoon and the rising of the sea brought about by the storm surge remain standing in ovation over the reported assistance from all parts of the globe.
The global community and international non-government organizations were moved by the misery of a helpless people, causing them to rush to where the devastation greatly affected the people. Unfortunately after four months, people are still standing no longer in ovation but in extreme misery waiting for the assistance that are well publicized and reported in media but had not been felt to meet their pressing felt needs.
This writer is one among the many survivors who were saved by the grace of God. It took several days before help reached his home place that is San Antonio in the old town of Basey of the impoverished province of Samar. The place is the nearest to the regional center that is highly urbanized city of Tacloban. In the immediate hours after the supertyphoon and the high waters subsided, choppers hovered the barangay but no assistance ever came as the city of Tacloban drew the attention of the world.
It was the energetic and youthful Atty. Junji Ponferrada, municipal mayor of Basey who reached immediately the barangay to personally lead clearing operations to make roads accessible the day following the typhoon. On Sunday, he came with some sacks of rice to feed his constituents, sharing food to the needy among his people. Assistance of food packs were also brought to the barangay by the provincial government of Samar which distributed relief goods and conducted medical consultations and treatment of the sick and wounded. On November 12, 2013 the city of Catbalogan also responded with relief goods, feeding program and medical mission.
It was also on November 12, 2013 that Rev. Fr. Rex M. Ibañez, priest in-charge of San Antonio de Padua Mission Center arrived from the retreat of Calbayog Clergy in Batangas. A Holy Mass was celebrated inside the devastated church right after the relief distribution and medical mission. It was the faith that held the people strong in the face of the devastation.
A visit by the Order of Malta led by Ms Mina Carag gave the first hope to the people as she immediately declared after making an assessment that Malteser International will adopt barangay San Antonio and committed to help the people from relief to recovery. But the first to respond with a livelihood project is Ms Gina Lopez who committed to help the fisherfolks with motorized fishing bancas and fishing gears. The motorized fishing bancas had already been launched on March 26, 2014. Malteser International is about to start the core shelter project and the Franciscans through Rev. Fr. Joel Sulse, O.F.M., parish priest of Sanctuario de San Antonio of Forbes Park Makati officiated the groundbreaking for 50 residential houses on 03 March 2014 in San Antonio, Basey, Samar through the auspices of the San Antonio de Padua Mission Center.
This is a clear reversal where the religious, the private sector and international non-government organization had taken the lead while government is groping to cope with complementation where it should have been the other way around. People thought that their government must have been in the frontline responding to their needs and the private and religious sectors giving complementary assistance. Reversed!
Comments to alellema@yahoo.com
Reversed
Lest parents renege
The fundamental law of the land recognizes the vital role of children and youth in nation building for which it shall promote and protect their physical, moral, spiritual, intellectual and social well-bring. In furtherance thereof, the state declares to likewise recognize the right of children to assistance, including proper care and nutrition, and special protection from all forms of neglect, abuse, cruelty and exploitation, and other conditions prejudicial to their development. This protection does not exclude such as against their parents and guardians.
Recently, certain local government units in Metro Manila have concretized in their government policies this protection due the touted hope of the motherland. The LGU of Mandaluyong City is in full implementation of an ordinance penalizing the parents of minors who are found to have committed infractions of law and violations of local ordinances. In as much as the minors are seemingly clothed with impunity under the Juvenile Justice and Welfare Act of 2006 (RA 9344), in that other sinister minds are utilizing them in the perpetration of crimes, the local edict will run after the parents or guardian who are remiss in their responsibility of looking after their own children or wards.
The city governments of Muntinlupa and Quezon were reported to follow suit. These LGUs see the need to discipline not only the children in conflict with the law but the parents as well who are primarily reposed with the natural duty and obligation, not only to their Creator, but also to the society. Needing intervention are not only the children, but the parents, too, who are accountable to the community for whatever wrong their children do that mar the peace and orderliness in their locality. The children in their custody are their accountability.
Is it not the rationale in putting the children under the custody of a reception center, preferably a rehabilitation facility? Parents are duty-bound to discipline their children and ensure the society that they will be raised as well-meaning citizens. However, if by the misdeeds of their children they provide the state and the society the impression that they renege in their responsibility, their children are placed in an institution that the latter will be reformed.
Notwithstanding this deprivation of direct parental supervision, there are parents who rather push their children to err and be placed in correctional institutions as way of escaping their elementary responsibility of caring and providing the basic needs of their misguided children. Therefore, to break this unproductive habit and seen as a measure to effectively minimize the incidents of children involving in crimes, the parents should be penalized.
63 years Korean War Korean soldiers repairs house of war veterans
DAGAMI, Leyte- After more than 60 years, Korean War veteran Sofio Lobrigo received a gift: repair of his house damaged by supertyphoon Yolanda.
And the repair of his house was initiated by young Korean soldiers who were not even born when the now 85 year old war veteran helped defend their country.
The house of Lobrigo, located at Barangay District 9, was severely damaged when supertyphoon Yolanda hit the town more than three months ago.
At a cost of about P800,000, Lobrigo’s house was renovated by the Korean soldiers who are here in Leyte to help victims of Yolanda.
According to Lobrigo, he saw a group of Korean soldiers a day after the typhoon in front of the town Church and approached them without hesitation and informed them that he was in their country during the Korean war 63 years ago.
“After 63 years after I fought in Korea, never in my wildest dream that this will happen,” the teary-eyed Lobrigo said.
He was just 22 years old when he went to Korea as part of the Philippines’ troops and helped defend the said country from invasion from soldiers of North Korea.
The Koreans took his picture and return after five days with construction materials and right there and then, started the repair of his house, he added.
The repair work was over in just two weeks. The soldiers repaired the roofing, the floor, the bedrooms, and even the extension of the house and the kitchen including the electrical wirings.
And they also painted the house.
They also built an office for Lobrigo as he is the district commander of the Veterans Federation in the Philippines in Leyte’s second district.
“I am very thankful to the government of Korea and at the same time to all the officers and enlisted men who made it possible that my home looks like this now” said an obviously happy Lobrigo.
The Korean forces also brought that day two boxes of noodles and two boxes of cookies and bottled water for Lobrigo.
The family of Lobrigo, in return and as sign of their gratitude, prepared native foods and delicacies such as moron, binagol and the roasted pig or lechon, for the Koreans and the Filipino soldiers who also joined in the work. (LIZBETH ANN ABELLA)
Close to 4 months since Yolanda UN, aid officials still visits Tacloban
TACLOBAN CITY- Over three months since this city was pummeled by supertyphoon Yolanda, top officials of the United Nations and other international aid groups keep coming in. And their visits to Tacloban were an indication that they would continue to help the city and its people, said City Mayor Alfred Romualdez. Last February 26,the undersecretary general of the United Nations for humanitarian affairs and emergency relief coordinator Valerie Amos visited Tacloban and Guiuan in Eastern Samar while on Feb.24, the deputy director general of the International Organization for Migration (IOM), Laura Thompson, was also in the city which is considered to be the ground zero of Yolanda. “You still see them around,” Romualdez said, referring to international humanitarian groups and their officials who are still in Tacloban three months after it was hit by the supertyphoon. According to the city mayor, their presence in Tacloban is an assurance that they would continue to help Tacloban though he emphasized that his administration is also doing its share in rebuilding the city of more than 220,000 people. Amos, in a brief interview with the media during her visit on Wednesday, said that she could see that after three months since Yolanda destroyed much of Tacloban, there was now a marked change in Tacloban. “This is my third visit in Tacloban in three months. My first two visits were soon after typhoon Yolanda and of course this area was totally, totally devastated. But what I have seen (today), there is now a great improvement” she said. For her part, Thompson said that their organization would continue to be in Tacloban “so long as we are needed and the government needs us.” The humanitarian assistance extended by the IOM to the country has now reached to $17 million with another $16 million in the pipeline, Thompson said. “I think the situation today is certainly much, much better. And I think, the reason why is because of the strong capacity of the government. The government of the Philippines has done a fantastic work also. You have in Philippines a large capacity of preparedness (on disasters),” Thompson said. (JOEY A. GABIETA)
JAH’s Army
On November 8, Jason Paulo Ty Tentativa was at PhilHealth Manila, the day his application for a job was accepted. At the PhilHealth office, he chanced upon an updated news report aired at station GMA-7 on the massive devastation super typhoon Yolanda brought to Tacloban and nearby towns. The young professional who just passed the nursing board felt shivers running down his spine, thinking of his mom and dad who live at V & G Subdivision.
The large number of fatalities in San Jose Tacloban and some parts of Palo got him engulfed in fear.
Ano daw la adi hira Mama; hira Papa? was the question that ruled his mind.
The following day Jason, upon knowing that flights to Tacloban were cancelled gambled a chance to join others at the Villamor Airbase, bound for Cebu. From Cebu he took a boat to Hilongos, Leyte. He boarded a Hilux to Tacloban and on Nov. 11, 3 days after the typhoon, he was home.
Coming home and entering Abuyog and passing through Macarthur, Mayorga, Dulag, Tolosa, Tanauan down to Palo, before his eyes was unbelievably bared massive destructions of dwellings even of the rich, felled coconut trees and even those standing were either cut down while other still bearing their leaves albeit disheveled showed signs of inutility. He learned further that deaths were all over town especially in Tacloban.
At home, while happy seeing his parents smiling – as lucky survivors, his inner self was bothered by the Yolanda tragedy to the victims who are homeless and hungry, shirtless who displayed blank stares of worry where they will go; what they will do and who they will go to for succor.
Jason has read these signs so he organized a team among friends, raised funds and the first donor was his father, Dan, who is a Sangguniang Bayan member of Isabel. Other donors gave. He went back to Cebu with the same purpose; sought help from his APO fraternity. With the money he bought relief goods and came back to Tacloban sought once more the help of barkada to pack the goods consisting of rice, sardines, corned beef, tooth brush, tooth paste, soap and shampoo.
They distributed these goods to San Jose, Nula-tula, Salvacion, Palanog,other parts of Tacloban and Basey, Samar.
The JAH group also distributed nails, tarpaulins even donated to some destitute families, hammers and saws.
Jason says that JAH stands for GOD or to him personally it stands for JESUS Always HELPS!!
Yolanda victims seeks ouster of Dinky
TACLOBAN CITY- A group composed of Yolanda victims have asked President Aquino to sack Social Welfare Secretary Corazon “Dinky” Soliman over the alleged P580 million rotting rice fiasco.
Firing Soliman from her post is justifiable considering that the sacks of rice found at the Subic Freeport that was supposed to be distributed to Yolanda victims were already declared as unfit for human consumption, said Efleda Bautista, vice president of the People Surge.
According to Bautista, the sacks of rice valued at P580 million was supposed to be distributed to the victims of typhoon Pablo but for some reason did not reach to the victims.
“The fact that P580 million worth of rice meant for Typhoon Pablo victims in December 2012 rotted in the Subic Freeport cries out a case of criminal negligence,” Bautista, in a press statement, said.
According to Bautista, the sacks of rice were to be distributed for the victims of Yolanda but were declared as no longer fit for human consumption.
“Two groups of typhoon survivors were victimized over this wasted rice, donated by the customs bureau from confiscated illegal shipments in 2012 because of the irresponsibility of the DSWD to which it was entrusted,” she added.
Bautista questioned why the DSWD had not been thoroughly investigated, particularly Sec. Soliman.
“Sec. Dinky Soliman should resign or be removed from office after being shown to be unfit by this incident as well as the dismal performance of her department in general in the two major calamities of Pablo and Yolanda,” she said.
According to Bautista, firing Soliman “would be too easy for the Aquino government without addressing the lack of relief and rehabilitation efforts.”
Thousands of storm victims trooped to Malacanang last February to submit their petition for Aquino to speed up delivery of relief goods, rehabilitation and a demand for P40,000 financial assistance which the President ignored. (RONALD REYES)