“I LEARN to embrace my difficulties as spiritual challenges that shape me and make me deeply human. I learn that when I can go toward the things that frighten me, then I am free. — Gail Straub, Circle of Compassion, 2001.
Much like Gail Straub’s reflections, three eyewitnesses — Rick Rocamora, JB Baylon and Lizley Caballero — showed capacities to be deeply human, faced by apocalyptic damage caused by Typhoon Haiyan.
Rick Rocamora captured the devastation of Typhoon Haiyan, within days of Nov. 8, 2013. What was to be a few days project for the
United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) became a month-long experience, giving birth to ‘Displaced’, a photojournalistic exhibit displayed in the Philippine Senate that portrayed hope amidst darkness, a basketball game amidst destruction and more.
JB Baylon of Nickel Asia Corporation (NAC) assisted in transporting Philippine General Hospital doctors to Guiuan. Two years later, NAC rebuilt homes for 500 families in Manicani Island, and installed Level 2 and 3 water systems.
Lizley Caballero, a volunteer of All Hands, worked for a year and 10 months in Leyte, helping with clean-up, debris removal and rehabilitation of homes and schools; in total, she reported that the non-profit helped in getting 561 units rebuilt.
All three shared, exclusively with the Asian Journal, their aftermath experiences of Typhoon Haiyan.
Typhoon Haiyan was a once in 55-years phenomenon, according to a disaster trends researcher. It was a “category 5 cyclone, with [a] sustained speed at landfall of 195 mph, wind gusts of 235 mph, a surge in sea level of 13 feet,” Mercy Corps noted. Imagine twice the size of a six-foot person and waters which got to the second and third floors of houses and buildings.
“Haiyan displaced 16 million people, with over 6,000 dead, and 70 to 80 percent in the storm’s path were destroyed,” Mercy Corps reported.
Manuel Zamora (NAC Chairman) tasked JB Baylon to fly medics to the hospital in Guiuan, a province in Eastern Samar. Though as badly hit as Tacloban in Leyte during the typhoon, Guiuan hardly got news coverage.
Here is JB’s first person account:
“I actually landed in Guiuan in the morning of November 12, Tuesday, four days after Yolanda struck. Man, this area was hit by an atomic bomb. No tree was left standing they were either bent towards Tacloban (maybe the direction of the wind) or broken in two. No structure was left standing with its roof intact. Except this one shanty that was built between two concrete houses. The concrete houses must have served as the windbreaker for the shanty because it emerged unscathed, while the concrete houses were damaged beyond repair…
“Tuesday, Nov. 12, at 5:30 am I was outside Farmacia Fatima across PGH to pick up two boxes of anti-tetanus medicines and a box of 2000 disposable syringes. At 6:30 I was with PGH doctors Mike Tee, Bryan Gilbert Lim, Ferdinand Luis Suarez and pathologist Maria Cecilia Lim and we were driving to the Subic Air hangar at the domestic terminal. By 730 am on Tuesday we were airborne and after 1.5 hours we were circling Guiuan to check if the runway — built by the Americans and still in excellent shape! — was free of debris. We were down on the ground by nearly 10 am.
“If you look at a map, you will see that parts of Eastern/southern Samar actually protect Leyte from the Pacific ocean…so it is not surprising that Guiuan was hit first although reports (including the BBC) keep on referring to Tacloban as the ‘epicentre” of the damage).
“Our company Chairman, Manuel Zamora, asked me to take a King Air[helicopter] and fly doctors from the Philippine General Hospital – and a car load of anti-tetanus medicines – to Guiuan in response to requests for help. We landed in the old US Air Force airstrip that has not been used for decades.
“Immediately upon landing it became obvious to me that while there was a semblance of order, this was fragile because three days had passed and no relief had been delivered to Guiuan — despite, as I mentioned above, it being one of the first to be hit by the typhoon and it having an excellent runway!
“Driving around town I saw maybe 999 out of 1000 houses with roofs blown away — the only lucky one being a small house built between two larger ones and which was protected from the winds.
“The stories were hair-raising….calm as of midnight Thursday, then howling winds by 4am Friday, with howls that did not let up for three hours and were as strong as an airplane’s jet engines. No wonder people claimed they thought they were going to go mad…especially after seeing their roofs blown away, followed by almost everything they possessed. At light of day, around 7am, when the winds ceased, they saw the damage, and started counting the dead, wounded and damaged.
“What’s terrible is that Guiuan has island barangays such as Victory, a flat island with trees and shanties and I am told that many families on that island are missing. Of course, no relief has reached those islands as well. To do that, air drops from helicopters will be needed, and fast. There are small craft, but when the seas are rough, using the fishermen’s boats may not be a good idea.
“As soon as we landed the four doctors deployed to the only operating hospital in town [a private hospital] was swamped with injuries. I headed to the damaged municipal hall to meet the mayor and his elder sister[ the former mayor] and there, we discussed the need to have someone take up the cudgels for Guiuan in Manila because everyone was focused on Tacloban. For this reason ex-Mayor Annaliz Kwan flew back to Manila with us when we left Guiuan at 5 pm.
“Upon our arrival at the airport I noticed six patients and found out they had broken bones in different parts of their bodies and needed to be airlifted to Cebu City. I used a satellite phone to contact Mr Zamora to ask permission so that our King Air could fly them out while we stayed behind the whole day in Guiuan ; his response was “do what has to be done and no need to get permission from me.” We therefore loaded four of the six patients who could sit up because their injuries were to their arms or legs; two patients with spinal issues had to await transport via the Air Force c130 planes.
“By the way, the antibiotics that the PGH doctors brought with them were used up at the Immaculate Concepcion hospital within an hour of their arrival.
“When the King Air returned to Guiuan by 5pm to pick us up, the doctors were tired and out of medicines. I had sheafs of paper on which were messages that Guiuanaoans wanted me to send to their relatives in Manila and abroad when I got back to Manila. This happened because one young lady at what served as the air terminal asked me if I were returning to Manila and when I responded in the affirmative, she asked me if I could send a message to a relation. I readily agreed and then asked everyone in the vicinity to find scraps of paper to write the names of their relatives and phone numbers and whatever messages they wanted me to convey. That’s why I had sheafs of them.
“Mostly with the message “we are alive no food no house no money BT we are alive”. it was to be an emotional night for me when I started calling people after I got home. Some couldn’t believe I had come from Guiuan; others wanted to hitch a ride on my return trip. To the latter is said it was best to stay away because roads were still impassable and there were major issues of food etc but that they should be happy their relations were alive.
“As a result of our initial contact with Guiuan, our company decided to adopt the island of Manicani on which we have a non-operating mine. We rebuilt the homes of close to 500 families on the island and launched a number of other projects (infrastructure as well as level 2 and 3 water systems) to help them get back on their feet, all in all sum of about $2 million in the year after Yolanda.
“As I write this (Nov. 8, 2015), I am in Tacloban having come from Manicani island again where we launched two more infrastructure projects which will give about 50 island residents a source of income for the next 3 months.”
Volunteering with All Hands
Lizley did marketing work with Tarp Advertising in Cagayan de Oro when Typhoon Sendong hit her province. She got involved with relief work with All Hands. It is a US-based non-profit which started relief work in Thailand and Japan and then, the Philippines.
Shortly after Typhoon Sendong, Bohol suffered an earthquake. She volunteered full-time with All Hands. She helped out near an area of Maribojoc, where a bridge collapsed. She helped clear debris, assisted with rebuilding homes, which had slanted, and solidifying weakened foundations.
Like the crew, she slept in a tent, with a rotating schedule for housekeeping to equalize the burdens of daily living. Laundry was done by a team of mostly women, while food supplies came from Tagbilaran, a 45-minute journey by boat. Chef duties were assigned to feed the group.
While in Bohol, she got news about Typhoon Haiyan through her friend, Dr. Charish Daffon, which caused worry. Telephone lines were down and she could not reach Dr. Daffon by phone.
Lizley went to Cebu and when she got there, disaster relief workers and those providing supplies to Leyte were the only ones authorized for travel to Ormoc. As luck would have it, she got a ticket to go to the SuperCat, a fast ferry, along with other volunteers for a 3 1/2 hour ride.
When she got to Dr. Daffon’s house, no one was home. She slept at a nearby park. The next day, she got to the only functioning hotel in Ormoc, Pongos Hotel, which was operating on its own gas and generators. The hotel became a hub for disaster relief workers and reporters. Power was limited to a few hours, each day. All bed spaces were taken, so she slept on a couch. Water was rationed, and hygiene was limited to wet washcloths.
A few days later, she found her friend, who had been staying with family. Reassured of her friend’s safety, Lizley, already a staff volunteer for All Hands in Leyte, rejoined the team, which had partnered with many local organizations.
In renovating the Kananga hospital, All Hands worked alongside other international organizations, like International Organization for Migration, Operations Blessing, and even Catholic Relief Services. In Tabango, Leyte (1 ½ hour from Ormoc), it helped in rebuilding two classrooms, partnering with local organizations.
According to Lizley, in partnering with local and international organizations, All Hands has built 561 units, which includes schools, homes, hospitals. Volunteers worked from 715 to 430 pm, Monday to Saturday on carpentry, manual digging for septic tank, foundation reinforcements, mixing cement, pouring, and debris removal.
In actively lending a hand, these eyewitnesses became deeply caring human beings, freer to live with a wide open heart, and able to endure meager ways of living, to serve others!
On Nov. 8, 2015, UNICEF lauded local community efforts to protect and to keep the children safe. However, many citizens’ needs remain unaddressed, given the apocalyptic size of the disaster that wiped out entire communities.
* * *
Prosy Abarquez-Delacruz, J.D. writes a weekly column for Asian Journal, called “Rhizomes.” She has been writing for Asian Journal Press for 8 years now. She contributes to Balikbayan Magazine. Her training and experiences are in the field of science, food technology, law and community volunteerism for 4 decades. She holds a B.S. degree from the University of the Philippines, a law degree from Whittier College School of Law in California and a certificate on 21st Century Leadership from Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government. She has been a participant in NVM Writing Workshops taught by Prof. Peter Bacho for 4 years and Prof. Russell Leong. She has travelled to France, Holland, Belgium and Mexico and 22 national parks in the US, in pursuit of her love for arts.