A Long Day in Tacloban

It’s 1:15pm here in Tacloban’s makeshift airport waiting for my 1:45 return light to Davao via Manila today 05 February 2014. ‘Long day’ because touring Tacloban, Palo and Tanauan in just in one day excluding the sleeping hours was heavy to the eyes, the ears and the heart. The hot sun yesterday and today added to the heaviness. To one who had been here several times before, one day is enough to get a feel of that terribly devastated area.

As board chairman of SOS Children’s Villages National Association I came to visit our Tacloban SOS Children’s Village and to look for my relatives. Earlier on Mr Helmut Kutin, an Austrian and former president of SOS Kinderdoff International, arrived here with Ms Shubba Murthi, an Indian and presently SOS CVs Asian regional director together with Mr. Bienvenido Delgado, Filipino and SOS Philippines national director. There were two other Austrians in the group, Christian and Anya, from SOS Kinderdoff International Office.

Thanks to many kind and generous foreign donors we have more than enough funds to start. Our village cottages and staff houses, which had been filled with water and mud by the storm surge and their roofs  blown off, are now cleaned and being slowly renovated. Although fairly livable the village  has no running water yet and city electricity not yet restored. A generator provides limited power at certain hours for computers. Available water comes from a lone pipe in the garden.

None of the 91 children and 43 staff members, ‘mothers’ and social workers were lost not even hurt. They were able to climb the rooftops when storm surge inundated the area. But the houses of most of them were damaged. The safety of all the children was due to the remarkable courage and presence of mind of Oscar Garol, our village director. Hours after the storm surge had subsided and, upon instruction of our Nat. Dir. Bien Delgado, he and Emily, our SOS Village director in Calbayog, an equally strong, resourceful nd courageous woman, brought our children to Calbayog City through a 24-hour difficult journey. They were brought back to Tacloban a couple of weeks later.

Yesterday Mr. Kutin and I met with the village staff and co-workers and thanked them for their sacrifice and hard-work in keeping the children safe and secure while helping heal those with  trauma.

While Tacloban SOS Village rebuilds itself, it is also helping build houses and providing livelihood projects for communities in Bgy Magay and Bgy Bislig in Tanauan under the able supervision of Ms Shubba and her team of SOS co-workers from our village and from India and Indonesia. They are doing an excellent job.  I feel Tanauan looks more devastated than Tacloban and Palo. Some people confirm this observation.

We toured also barangay Palanog where SOS will restore the roofs of a public school building and several houses. Only strong winds had hit this government-own inland area where residents had been relocated several years ago. We spent some time with the kids and adults who entertained us with dancing songs. There are no foreign or local relief groups yet in this place.

I found a cousin in Tanauan, Mrs. Liezel Aniban Maceda and her 3 kids. My companions, Elma Delmo and Diana Borja, SOS co-workers, helped me find her. They are from Tanauan. The Aniban  ancestral home, where my grandmother was born and where my mother  grew up, was badly damaged. She was in tears when mentioning the tragic incident. Her parents have since moved to Manila.

Tacloban, Palo and Tanauan look terribly and almost totally devastated. Even if some residences and big buildings were not destroyed, most of them have their roofs blown off and their interiors filled with water and mud. The same happened to the Cathedral,  Archbishop’s Residence and several parish churches.

From the outside of the wide and sprawling span of wreckage and mounds of debris made by Yolanda and rows of  white-colored tents of the survivors now made less repulsive by makeshift houses and heavy  container vans of foreign groups ang their vehicles, I observe  that the residents of Tacloban and Palo and Tanauan are vigorously struggling to survive in spite of the dire absence of much-needed facilities. Jeepneys, buses and military trucks keep the streets crowded and busy. Some gas  stations are now open and the price of gas is quite high; several stores and some restaurants seem to be doing good business. Even in this situation it is not accurate to say that life is back to normal. Then I was surprised to hear from local people that there are now more Muslims in the business area. I was not able to ask why. And this fact too is not normal.

Contrasting sentiments of the people appear in huge and bold letters painted on rooftops and written on wide tarpaulins: HELP US, SAVE US !, F__K YOU, YOLANDA, THANK YOU, FRIENDS!,

BANGON TACLOBAN(Stand Up Tacloban)!.  Then on our car radio I heard these words, “anhon ta man pagbangon karon kay waray atup balay, waray tubig, waray suga”, (“how can we rise up now when there’s no roof on the house, no water, no light”). The “waray” word, which means “nothing”, seems to describe much of people’s deprivation here.

It really was a long and heavy day for me. But for people in Tacloban, Palo and Tanauan, the coming days, weeks, and months will surely be terribly long as children and some adults still quiver in fear and suffer being traumatized by rains and news of impending typhoons.

Just before boarding Cebu Pacific a text from my friend Nilo Claudio in Davao  struck a uplifting note in my heavy consciousness: “US bishop says Pope Francis might make a surprise visit to Tacloban”. Which spoiled my attempts at the usual afternoon nap during the one-hour flight to Manila!