MikeLigalig.com

may this prayer be read by the earthquake and typhoon victims in the philippines. god bless them all. amen.

kun wa mag-prepare ang tacloban and leyte/samar, the deaths would have been many times more, matod pa sa experts.

duda ko nga knee-jerk reaction ra ni ni pnoy, bai tigs, tungod kay giunhan siya sa mayor sa tacloban nga nibasol pod niya nga awahi ang national tabang, on top of the negative international comments which came his way in the first few days.  maayo baya mananom ning atong presidente.  kusog modumot ug political enemies, hehe.  tan-awa ang iyang paggukod kang kanhing president gma ug kang kanhing cj corona.  farmer ni siya gawas nga presidente. 

bright side na lang atong tan-awon.  so far, at least, naa pay credibility atong nasod tungod kay he is regarded as someone who does not steal.  maayo na lang.

beautiful, loll.

goodness me.  what's happening to the world?  glad you're all fine, loll.  and taga tigbao's family too.

En el centro, Naderev Yeb Saño, jefe de la delegación de Filipinas en COP19. LA PRENSA/J. Obando

Naderev “Yeb” Saño, lead climate negotiator for the Philippines, talks to reporters after announcing that he would fast during the two-week negotiations in Warsaw to underscore the need for urgent action after Super Typhoon Haiyan. Photograph by Kacper Pempel, Reuters

On the opening day of the UN Climate Change Conference in Poland, Naderev Saño of the Philippines’ Climate Change Commission urged for an end to the climate crisis "madness" and pledged to fast at the talks until there is "a meaningful outcome" to the discussions. Saño’s speech comes after super typhoon Haiyan wreaked havoc across the Central Philippines. In his speech, he said, "What my country is going through as a result of this extreme climate event is madness. The climate crisis is madness. We can stop this madness right here in Warsaw.” World nations launched a new round of talks in Warsaw to pave the way for a 2015 deal to cut climate-altering greenhouse gas emissions. Saño said that while the Philippines is working on its own renewable energy program, it struggles with it. He challenged developed countries to aid the Philippines by providing an estimated US$500 million for part of the incremental cost for the Philippines' feed-in tariff. The 12-day United Nations talks opened amid a slew of warnings about extreme weather phenomena unless greenhouse gas emissions are curbed. (http://www.rappler.com/)

A MOMENT OF SILENCE. Naderev Sano and other delegates pay standing tribute to victims of Typhoon Haiyan during the UN Climate Change Conference COP 19 on November 11, 2013 AFP PHOTO/JANEK SKARZYNSKI

Sano writes, "To anyone who continues to deny the reality that is climate change, I dare them to get off their ivory towers and away from the comfort of their armchairs. I dare them to go to the islands of the Pacific, the islands of the Caribbean and the islands of the Indian ocean and see the impacts of rising sea levels; to the mountainous regions of the Himalayas and the Andes to see communities confronting glacial floods, to the Arctic where communities grapple with the fast dwindling polar ice caps, to the large deltas of the Mekong, the Ganges, the Amazon, and the Nile where lives and livelihoods are drowned, to the hills of Central America that confronts similar monstrous hurricanes, to the vast savannas of Africa where climate change has likewise become a matter of life and death as food and water becomes scarce." (http://www.examiner.com/)

November 12, 2013

At the U.N. international climate talks in Warsaw, Poland yesterday, Philippines delegate Naderev "Yeb" Sano broke down in tears and vowed to fast until a "meaningful outcome is in sight."

Sano, who has relatives that were caught in Super Typhoon Yolanda-Haiyan, said that he is still waiting for word about relatives that were caught in the catastrophic storm that packed winds of up to 195 mph last week. Though grateful to find that his brother was alive, he was saddened to hear of the agony survivors are going through.

His brother has been doing what he can to help the grief-stricken region.

"In the last two days he has been gathering bodies of the dead with his own two hands," Sano said.

Sano says the intensity of Super Typhoon Yolanda was caused by climate change. (U.N. climate change talks: United Nations Philippine envoy breaks down in tears, http://www.examiner.com/)

Usec. Naderev "Yeb" Saño
Commissioner of the Climate Change Commission of the Philippines, and Chief Negotiator of the Philippines in the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change

-noted for one of the most powerful speeches in the Climate Change Convention when he made an emotional appeal to world leaders to take action on climate change in the Doha Conference of the Parties in 2012. (Batch 1991, Quezon City Science High School)

Ban said the UN had put in place a scientific advisory board of at least 30 scientists who will begin work in February to help the UN make decisions on protecting global resources and addressing the climate change threat.

On the first day of the climate change conference in Warsaw, the Philippine envoy broke down in tears and announced he would fast until a “meaningful outcome is in sight.”

His emotional appeal was met with a standing ovation at the start of the two-week talks where more than 190 countries will try to lay the groundwork for a new pact to fight global warming.

“We can fix this. We can stop this madness. Right now, right here,” Saño said, adding that he would fast until the end of the conference to stress the urgency of the matter.


http://globalnation.inquirer.net/

The latest round of UN talks to set new climate goals comes amid warnings a 2009 aim to limit warming to an increase of 2 degrees Celsius in the average global temperature is growing ever more elusive.

In September, the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change predicted global surface temperatures could climb on average by as much as 4.8 degrees Celsius this centuryâ€"a recipe for catastrophic heat waves, floods, droughts and sea level rise.

“We need action before it is too late,” said the UN chief, adding that a rise in temperatures would “affect us all. The threat is very real, and we all have to take responsibility to stop it.”

Climate change activists have linked the unprecedented strength of the typhoon to global warming.

While many experts are still hesitant to link extreme weather phenomena to climate change, the UN has said that rising sea levels make coastal populations more vulnerable to storm surges.

The World Meteorological Organization has estimated that 2013 was on course to be one of the hottest years since records began, with global sea levels reaching a record high.

The representative of the Philippines to that conference, Naderev “Yeb” Saño, is currently leading a protest fast to stress the urgency of unified global action to reverse climate change.

Said Ban: “We have seen now what has happened in the Philippines. It is an urgent warning,” he said, “an example of changed weather and how climate change is affecting all of us on earth.”

The Philippine death toll now stands at 3,681 and is expected to rise as more rescue-and-relief operatives comb areas in the central Philippines that was hit on Nov. 8 by Typhoon “Haiyan” (“Yolanda” in the Philippines), the strongest typhoon ever to hit land.

Philippine typhoon warning to man, says UN chief

Agence France-Presse
Monday, November 18th, 2013


U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon. AP

TALLINNâ€"The secretary general of the United Nations (UN), Ban Ki-moon, said on Saturday the supertyphoon that killed thousands in the Philippines was an example of climate change and should serve as a warning to mankind.

Ban was speaking at Tallinn University in Estonia on a tour of several Baltic states before joining a second week of climate talks in Poland.

The UN chief said the world was facing a tipping point as countries thresh out a deal to be signed in 2015 to cut earth-warming greenhouse gas emissions.

a school sign in Brisbane, Australia (ABS-CBN)

mutual, to be fair. one is swiss cheese, the other is spare ribs.

looks like some grown men are children forever.

a fair warning.  tingalig ang ending magkinahanglan ug emergency relief ang relief workers.

on an already calm sea, against the backdrop of a calm sea, i wish the image of the lifeless mother and child was just photoshopped.  how i wish this whole image is just photoshopped.

Vietnam
* PHP 4,300,000.00 (USD 250,000.00)
   
   
UNICEF
* PHP 4,300,000.00 (USD 250,000.00)

*60 tons of aid (shelters and medicine), ETA PH 11/12, to be followed by deliveries of water purification and sanitation equipment


UNOCHA
*PHP 1,079,300,000.00 (USD 25,250,000.00)

*USD 25 M to be released from the Central Emergency Relief Fund as an initial response

Arab Gulf Fund for UN Development (AGFUND)
*PHP 1,083,600,000.00 (USD 25,350,000.00)

   
Asian Development Bank
*PHP 2,072,600,000.00 (USD 48,350,000.00)

*Grant agreement for USD 3M for Typhoon Haiyan (Yolanda) Project USD 3M from Asia Pacific Disaster Response Fund USD 20M from Japan Fund for Poverty Reduction


-from Foreign Aid Transparency Hub update as of November 17, 2013, http://www.gov.ph/faith/full-report/

Thailand
*USD 200,000 cash pledge

*Offer to send a medical mission
*C-130 carrying relief goods


Turkey

*1 plane loaded with relief goods - tents, blankets, kitchen sets transported via a Turkish airlines cargo plane
*Search and rescue team
   

United Arab Emirates
*PHP 430,000,000.00 (USD 10,000,000.00)

*Pledged USD 10M worth of assistance
   

United Kingdom
*PHP 1,523,920,000.00 (USD 35,440,000.00)

*£16 M funding for: £5 million donated to charities (Disasters Emergency Appeal for the Philippines) £3 million to fly vital supplies such as water purification kits, cutting equipment and medical support, as well as teams of humanitarian and medical experts, to flood hit areas £8 million for the Rapid Response Facility (shelter, food, water, sanitation, health kits)
*Additional £30 M pledged 11/16 for the UN and the Red Cross
*Scotland government pledged £600,000
*Military support including the HMS-Daring with Lynx helicopters and *HMS-Ilustrious with 8 helicopters, two (2) C-130 and one (1) Antonov to fly freight and assist other humanitarian activities
 
   
United States of America

*USD 22.5M worth of humanitarian funding through USAID and DoD

*More than 50 ships and aircrafts to assist search-and-rescue operations and to airlift emergency supplies, including the George Washington battle group doing medical operations in Eastern Samar


Vatican
*USD150,000 to be distributed to local churches in affected areas

Slovakia
*Pledged EUR 20,000


South Korea
*Pledged USD 5M worth of assistance

*Korean Disaster Relief Team (KDRT) on standby
*KOICA medical team


Spain

*Two (2) planes loaded with relief goods and people to assist in humanitarian activities
*AECID medical team


Sweden

*Assistance through UNOCHA operations, including: Two (2) C-130 planes to deliver fuel and generators and 8 members of the Swedish Civil Contingencies Agency
*Additional 1 IL-76 with relief goods


Switzerland
*Pledged initial assistance amounting to USD 3.4M

*Professionals, medical doctors and health specialists, water and sanitation engineers, shelter experts and logisticians in Cebu City
*Relief goods, water purification and distribution equipment, tents
   

Taiwan
*PHP 8,600,000.00 (USD 200,000.00)

*USD 200,000.00
*1 plane loaded with relief goods

Norway
*PHP 137,600,000.00 (USD 3,200,000.00)

*20M Norwegian Krone via UNOCHA and Red Cross

   
Panama
* PHP 137,600,000.00 (USD 3,200,000.00)

*Pledged USD 200,000; beneficiary to be announced


Qatar
* PHP 137,600,000.00 (USD 3,200,000.00)

*1 aircraft with relief goods


Russia
*PHP 137,600,000.00 (USD 3,200,000.00)

*2 planes loaded with humanitarian goods
*EMERCOM medical team
   

Saudi Arabia
*USD 10M donation
 

Singapore
* PHP 6,880,000.00 (USD 160,000.00)

*Civil defense force to assist the UN office in coordinating humanitarian activities
*SGD 200,000

Kuwait

*Pledged USD 10M worth of assistance; form of donation to be determined


Luxembourg
* PHP 23,048,000.00 (USD 536,000.00)

*4 rescue experts deployed as part of UNOCHA's International Humanitarian Partnership team, 2 emergency experts
*EUR 400,000 allocated to Luxembourg's humanitarian partners

   
Malaysia

*Military medics, search and rescue team, blankets and medicine


Mexico
*USD 1M through the Red Cross
   

Netherlands
PHP 118,121,000.00 (USD 2,747,000.00)

*EUR 2M pledge via Red Cross and UNOCHA, in addition to EUR 50,000 initially released to Red Cross


New Zealand
*PHP 229,985,500.00 (USD 5,348,500.00)

*NZ$ 2.15M
*Relief goods
*Two (2) C-130 aircrafts will be in PH for 4-5 days to provide transportation

India

*15 tonnes of relief goods (blankets, medicine, hygiene items, fresh water and water purification material, tents, blankets, mattresses, food)


Indonesia
*PHP 86,000,000.00 (USD 2,000,000.00)

*Three (3) C-130 aircrafts bringing relief goods (worth USD 1M) including a "naval asset"
*USD 1M handed to Jakarta PE


Ireland
*EUR 1.5 pledge for emergency funding


Israel

*Two (2) 747 planes with 158 personnel with field medical facilities
*Mobile desalination equipment, medical supplies, food
   

Italy
*PHP 57,620,000.00 (USD 1,340,000.00)

*Relief goods (tents, blankets, water bottles and purifiers) valued of approximately â,¬350,000; â,¬300,000 in support of the WFP emergency food assistance plan; â,¬350,000 contribution to the Red Cross (TOTAL: â,¬1M)

   
Japan
PHP 57,620,000.00 (USD 1,340,000.00)

*Medical personnel (JICA), Japan Self-Defense Team to assist in humanitarian activities
*Use of 15 aircrafts to assist in rescue and relief operations
*USD 10M for emergency relief to be coursed through the UN
*Emergency relief goods worth up to 60M Yen

Denmark
*PHP 68,800,000.00 (USD 1,600,000.00)

*DKK 10M through UNOCHA

   
EU/EC
*PHP 817,860,000.00 (USD 19,020,000.00)

*Two (2) 747s loaded with relief goods
*EUR 3M for immediate humanitarian assistance, plus additional EUR 10M for reconstruction pledged for rehabilitation and reconstruction
*Team of Humanitarian Experts
   

Finland
* PHP 57,620,000.00 (USD 1,340,000.00)

*EUR 1M through Finnish Red Cross to supply 9,500 vaccine and medical packages
*Two (2) motor boats for rescue operations
   

France

*A group of French first responders with experience with OCHA is departing Paris for PH on Wednesday, November 13 and staying for seven (7) days, with one ton of medicine and other relief goods
*16 social workers and representatives from the French Government's crisis center carrying relief goods
 

Germany
*PHP 259,290,000.00 (USD 6,030,000.00)

*EUR 1.5M approved for emergency humanitarian assistance via partner organizations - includes medical teams, rescue teams, relief goods, etc.
*German Federal Agency for Technical Relief (THW) sent a search and rescue team


Hungary

*Mobile water purification plant with 6 technical personnel to operate the facility (capacity of 5000 liters per hour)
*20-person search and rescue team and 5 medics

Full report of aid according to Foreign Aid Transparency Hub (FAITH)


Australia       
*PHP 1,215,696,000.00 (USD 28,262,700.00)

*AUD 2M through the deployment of Australian medical assistance team
*(AusMAT) AUD 1M through the Australian Federal Police disaster management specialists
*AUD 13M through UN Flash Appeal AUD 13M through Australian NGOs
*AUD 1M for non-food items (tarpaulins, sleeping mats, mosquito nets, water containers and health and hygiene kits to assist families affected by this disaster)
*AUD 390,000 worth of emergency supplies through the Red Cross and UNFP
*Use of aircrafts and ships to support transport and logistical requirements of humanitarian activities


Belgium

*Belgian First Aid and Support Team (70 personnel)
*Water treatment units
*Relief goods


Cambodia
*USD 100,000 check pledged to PH Government


Canada
*PHP 205,475,500.00 (USD 4,778,500.00)

*CAD 5M
*CAD 30,000 through the Red Cross
*CAD 250,000 pledge by the Government of Saskatchewan  Province, Canada
*CAD 100,000 pledge by the Government of Manitoba
*Province, Canada
*Deployment of aircrafts, and the Canadian Armed Forces' Disaster Assistance Response Team (DART) for 30-60 days
*PH Crisis Fund. The CA government has set up the PH  crisis fund to address the needs of affected  populations in the PH. For every dollar donated by  individual Canadians to registered Canadian charities  responding to the crisis in the PH, the government will  set aside an additional dollar to match the donation.  The money from the relief fund will be used to provide  assistance through international and Canadian  humanitarian organizations.


China PROC
*PHP 8,600,000.00 (USD 200,000.00)

*USD 100,000 financial assistance to the PH Government
*USD 100,000 through the Red Cross
*RMB 10M worth of emergency relief goods (blankets,  tents, etc.) via chartered flight
   

Czech Republic
*CZK 4M pledge for humanitarian assistance

oldataym, fr chic.  meant to be shared kuno ni, according to my niece.  so akong gikopya and posted this to the only website i joined, this tb one.  please do the same because at least you're more techie and familiar with other websites from the looks of it.

travel mercies, fr chic!  masabtan ang kamingaw kay bisan asa ta bol-anon man gyod ta.  in your case, i imagine it's more acute because of the earthshaking welcome you had in bohol and the relentless relief efforts you did soon after in saving bodies and souls.  god bless!

(too bad palpak akong scheduled trip to bohol kay way airline modawat nako.  napuno ug pasas akong nawong; ogahip sa binisaya pa.  daot akong vanity. ingon tawon si banana republic nga gasto ning dako kang belo.  di ko moadto ana niya uy.  maayog wifey ko ni manny pacquiao. )

Gerardo Alvarez, a 53-year-old evacuee from Tacloban, grimaces with grief while strapped to a wheelchair at Brigadier General Benito N. Ebuen Airbase in Cebu November 15, 2013. Alvarez survived Typhoon Haiyan but his mother and sister died and his niece said he became delusional five days later and has been medicated. REUTERS/Aubrey Belford

Bodies of a woman and a child, victims of Typhoon Haiyan float in a sea at Tacloban November 16, 2013. REUTERS/John Javellana

A teddy bear is hung out to dry in a part of Tolosa devastated by Typhoon Haiyan, November 16, 2013. REUTERS/John Javellana

A girl drinks juice in a church damaged by Typhoon Haiyan during a mass in Tacloban November 16, 2013. REUTERS/Damir Sagol

A Philippine soldier lifts a baby above the waiting crowd at a gate of Tacloban airport in the aftermath of super typhoon Haiyan November 14, 2013. REUTERS/Wolfgang Rattay

People commute through a flooded street amidst the rubble after a downpour in the aftermath of super typhoon Haiyan in Tacloban city, central Philippines November 14, 2013. REUTERS/Edgar Su

Victims queue for food and water in the aftermath of super typhoon Haiyan in Tacloban city, central Philippines November 14, 2013. REUTERS/Erik De Castro

Survivors pass the time outside the ruins of their homes, destroyed by Super Typhoon Haiyan in Palo, south of Tacloban November 15, 2013. REUTERS/Damir Sagolj

A man carrying his dog makes a call at a departure gate of the destroyed airport for evacuation, after super typhoon Haiyan battered Tacloban City in central Philippines November 15, 2013. REUTERS/Edgar Su

Typhoon survivors, waiting to leave the province of Leyte in the aftermath of the Super Typhoon Haiyan, in the hold of a C-130 military transport plane at Tacloban airport, in central Philippines, November 15, 2013. REUTERS/Erik De Castro

Typhoon survivors, waiting to leave the province of Leyte in the aftermath of the Super Typhoon Haiyan, are pictured in the hold of a C-130 military transport plane at Tacloban airport, in central Philippines, November 15, 2013. REUTERS/Erik De Castro

Residents wait to get onto a military plane during an evacuation at Tacloban airport in the Typhoon Haiyan devastated city, November 16, 2013. REUTERS/Bobby Yip

A man repairs his house, which was damaged by Typhoon Haiyan, at a coastal area south of Tacloban November 16, 2013. REUTERS/Damir Sagolj

An aerial picture taken with a micro-drone camera unit of German NGO International Search and Rescue shows the roofless Metropolitan Cathedral of the Archdiocese of Palo in the Typhoon Haiyan devastated town, near Tacloban in central Philippines November 16, 2013. REUTERS/ISAR-GERMANY

Survivors wait in line for aid to be distributed, in an area devastated by Typhoon Haiyan, south of Tacloban November 16, 2013. REUTERS/Damir Sagolj

Survivors do their laundry at a well next to a ship that washed ashore in their destroyed community after the Super typhoon Haiyan battered Tacloban city in central Philippines November 16, 2013. REUTERS/Edgar Su

People carry a coffin with the remains of their relative, who was killed during Typhoon Haiyan, through a destroyed chapel at a cemetery during the victim's funeral in Palo November 16, 2013. REUTERS/John Javellana

Villagers affected by Typhoon Haiyan wave to Filipino servicemen departing in their aircraft after distributing relief goods in the remote village of Aubyog, west of Tacloban November 16, 2013.  REUTERS/Bobby Yip

An aerial view shows houses damaged by Typhoon Haiyan, on the outskirts of Tacloban November 16, 2013. REUTERS/Bobby Yip

A man walks through smoke from fires in a part of Tolosa devastated by Typhoon Haiyan, November 16, 2013. REUTERS/John Javellana

A CHILD carries another child on his back as they try to live normal lives in Tacloban City, now barely recognizable as the regional hub that it was before Supertyphoon “Yolanda” and an equally tragic government response struck. MARK ALVIC ESPLANA/INQUIRER SOUTHERN LUZON

it's unfortunate that there's one typo error in an otherwise mellifluous text.  the third to the last line is somewhat askew.  well, what's one typo.  we got the whole thing in order just the same.  and how encouraging it is.  inspiring, even.

hahay, politics as usual.  nangamatay na ang mga botante, politics gihapon.  way mapili ninyo uy.

the banana republic feels the same way.  there really is no excuse for murder, even a state-sanctioned one like a death sentence for convicts.

any more details on this news, hof?  like was the murderer identified?

how true naman.  di na na matupngan.

It was the first one to truly take me out of my comfort zone, to make me fear for my life, and to show me a terrifying glimpse of the nature of people at their best, at their most desolate, and at their most wicked.

I arrived in Tacloban a veteran reporter of disasters, mistakenly believing I had seen it all. I left the broken city humbled and grateful, sure only of the knowledge that I knew nothing at all.

I won’t ever forget what happened there. May it never happen again.


http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/

Meeting a monster

I am no stranger to monster typhoons.

I’d flown to Mindanao for two Decembers in a row, in 2011 and 2012, to report on the aftermath of Tropical Storm “Sendong” (“Washi”) and Typhoon “Pablo” (“Bopha”), respectively. I covered the devastation inflicted by Tropical Storm “Ondoy” (“Ketsana”) on the eastern parts of Metro Manila four years ago.

But Yolanda was the first monster I set out to meet a day before it came.

On the ride to the airport, in two rental vans, Orbeta and I saw dozens of people, including little children, walking aimlessly in the streets, in the stillness and darkness of the wee hours, against a backdrop of a city in ruins. It was 3 a.m.

Where will these people sleep? What will become of them? Will help ever reach them? I wondered.

What I saw in the broad light of day had been horrible. But nothing prepared me for the night. It was far grimmer, darker, what “nightmare” means, but real.

The buildings of Tacloban will rise again, no doubt, but it will take much longer to heal the people.

We’re alive

Later that night, toward the end of his report, Jiggy Manicad announced on live TV that we were safe. (One editor, Juliet Labog-Javellana, would tell me later how worried sick she was about us, and how Manicad’s announcement eased her worries).

The GMA 7 team also told us that they were to hitch a ride on a C-130 military transport plane, which was to land in the Tacloban airport early the next morning. Manicad offered to let us come with them, and we gladly accepted.

The news team had also invited a few others who were stranded in Tacloban. They didn’t need to do it, but they did. I am forever thankful to them for their generosity.

The somber silence was interrupted by a commotion on the road. Men aboard a moving truck were giving away dressed chickens.

People immediately swarmed around the truck as chickens flew like projectiles from it.

Although deep in grief, the residents erupted with laughter, delighted by the unexpected treat.

A little boy who got a chicken played with it, flapping its wings and clucking his tongue, as he walked home, bringing dinner for his family.

Tears streamed down their faces, and the older brother could only sit down beside the body, his face crumpled.

It was heart-wrenching.

Palo was just as devastated as Tacloban, if not more so.

The corpses, most of them now in body bags, were taken to a cathedral. They had started to putrefy. Family members stood some distance away.

Heart-wrenching scenes

Palo was 13 kilometers away, and the walk was punishing. My feet bled from chafing. The streets were filled with people carrying all sorts of things taken from stores, anything that could be useful.

Others were looking for their loved ones in the piles of bodies.

Two young men were peering at the faces of the corpses lying in front of a building. I witnessed the exact moment they recognized their dead father.

By chance, we met a team from GMA 7 network led by reporters Jiggy Manicad and Micaela Papa. They were on their way to Palo, where they had set up to broadcast live via satellite.

(The Inquirer would later acquire satellite phones to be used by subsequent teams sent to the area.)

We had also wanted to visit Palo, so we accepted the GMA 7 team’s kind offer to join their party.

By our fourth day in Tacloban, we were brimming with stories and images, but with nothing to show for it.

Orbeta was concerned that the longer we stayed there, unable to send our materials, our stories and photos would no longer be usable, overtaken by newer developments.

“They do not even know yet that we are OK,” I reminded him, referring to our editors.

Human nature

The paranoia and panic were contagious. Truthfully, I was feeling it, too. Our drinking water was running out. Our empty stomachs were groaning.

Were we to resort to looting, too? It was unconscionable, but in some ways, understandable.

Was Thomas Hobbes right after all? Was this the true nature of humans without law and without government?

Fortunately, Orbeta and I came across a woman selling bottled water, soft drinks and potato chips from a roadside. She allowed us to buy two big bottles of water and a couple of packs of chips. She couldn’t sell us more, the woman said, as she had nothing else to feed her family.

The next day, the scene on the streets downtown was postapocalyptic: barefoot residents sifting through trash that remained uncollected, the homeless wandering around, stores looted and emptied, the looters still around howling.

“It’s anarchy,” the owner of our hotel said, expressing his fear that people might soon try to break into the building out of desperation.

Lawlessness had gripped Tacloban, and nowhere was this more evident than in the establishments stripped not only of food and water but practically anything of value: bags, clothes, shoes and slippers, appliances, TV sets, DVD players.

Our feet were blistered, our backs sore. We returned to the hotel in the evening, spent and hungry.

“We will have to ration our food,” I told Orbeta in jest. We laughed at our meager supplies laid out on the bedside table.

The hotel management had served porridge and boiled eggs to the guests earlier that day, but the porridge was gone by the time we came back. We ate a boiled egg and drank precious sips of water for dinner that night.

Tragedy up close

We didn’t need to look for them. All we needed to do was follow the trail of men and women, dazed, crying, helpless, in the streets.

I had never seen a tragedy this close. My emotions were drained, my mind numb. That was when I met Julita Jaca with her incongruous smile. Maybe it was she who saved my sanity.

Orbeta and I walked for hours that first day, recording harrowing stories and images even as we had no way of transmitting them to our editors.

And those I managed to interview spoke of a heart-wrenching grief.

Len de Guzman emerged, hysterical from a public elementary school that was supposed to be an evacuation center. Her 6-year-old daughter Ellen Shane had died in her arms, drowned as they clung to the ceiling of a classroom, frantically trying to keep their heads above the water.

Bodies were everywhere, under the rubble, on the sidewalks, some covered with blankets, others uncovered, still dripping blood.

The two corpses were taken to a village outpost. Then on top of the mother, somebody placed a dead baby that had gotten separated from them.

It wasn’t difficult to spot the woman’s husband and the children’s father. He was weeping on the pavement, a broken man. He had lost his entire family.

This story was repeated everywhere I went in what remained of Tacloban, of mothers and husbands and children, dead or missing. Some of the bereaved had faces so racked with pain I couldn’t bear to watch, let alone try to talk to them.

First bodies

I saw the first bodies almost immediately. They were of a woman and her young son on a wooden cart being pushed by two men.

I signaled to Orbeta, and he began taking pictures.

I chased the tragic carriage through the main thoroughfare to the small alleys. Everywhere the pushcart went, residents mutely watched, some of them coming closer to look at the faces of the dead.

By 9 a.m., the waters had subsided, but the winds remained strong, and a current still ran through the streets, only this time moving in the opposite direction, back east where the disturbance had come.

From our vantage point at the hotel entrance, we could see children wading through ankle-deep waters, some of them entering shops forced open by the surging water. They were already looting even before the storm had completely blown away.

By noon, we headed out to assess the damage, to talk to people who were affected, to record their ordeal.

I entertained morbid thoughts. Before shutting down my phones and laptop to save on battery, I deleted everything I didn’t want people to find there should I be killed. I felt like laughing at the ridiculousness of it.

I lay in my bed, Orbeta in his. “Many people are probably dying right now,” I said aloud. Orbeta agreed.

In the darkness we listened in silence to Yolanda’s roar.

Orbeta and I went back to our room. Our phones and modems had no signal. The hotel Wi-Fi was no longer accessible. There was no water from the faucet.

I took stock of our supplies: just a 1-liter bottle of water for each of us, a couple small packs of SkyFlakes crackers, a handful of Fudgee cake bars. How are we going to survive on this?

I thought of my family back home. I had not even told them where I was.

What’s going on?

Downstairs, the water had reached the ceiling of the ground floor. Hotel guests were leaving their rooms, filling the lobby, alarmed and restless.

“What is going on?” one whispered.

Conversations were hushed, as though people were afraid of further angering the heavens.

The lights went out.

We saw corrugated metal roofing and other things we couldn’t identify flying past. Cars were being dragged through the flooded street. An electric pole was swaying dangerously. The tide was sweeping inward, unbelievably strong, fast.

We rushed out the fire exit, afraid that debris might hit the window. And soon enough, just as we closed the door, we heard the shattering of glass.

A sharp object had pierced the fire exit window, letting the water in and flooding our floor.

‘This is a strong one’

At 4 a.m. on Friday, we woke to the howling and whistling of the wind outside, punctuated by what sounded like booms and crashes, of things slamming into buildings, the grating noises of metal hitting metal, of glass breaking and shattering. It was so fierce the walls of the hotel shook lightly.

“Jesus Christ. This is a strong one,” Orbeta said, quickly slinging his camera around his neck to snap pictures of the scene outside. We went to the fire exit on the fourth floor to look through the glass window.

The view was white. Sheets of water were sweeping furiously inland, practically horizontally.

But as I browsed for weather updates on the Internet and checked Yolanda’s track, I thought, “Aren’t we on the direct path of the storm?”

Coming into Tacloban, we had gathered that Yolanda would hit the “Samar-Leyte area,” and there were indications it would be moving northwest, theoretically hitting Samar more heavily than Leyte.

In fact, my biggest concern at that point was that the storm might strike another area too distant for us to go.

I was very, very wrong.

We spent the rest of Thursday surveying the storm preparations around the city and the adjacent town of Palo, where Douglas MacArthur famously landed in 1944.

Residents went about their business unmindful of the ominous clouds on the horizon. It was calm, perhaps too calm.

That night, Orbeta and I discussed our game plan for the next day, Yolanda’s landfall. The expectation was Tacloban would be hit, but not too badly. We were to hire a vehicle to take us to the areas expected to be most devastated from the storm, and we would return to Tacloban to file our stories and photographs.

Nothing to worry about

On the way to the hotel, the tricycle driver told us that there was nothing to worry about downtown. “The most it [the flooding] will reach is up to the knee,” he said. We were almost reassured.

“We need to find a solid building,” said Orbeta, who hails from Bicol, one of the places frequently battered by tropical cyclones blowing in from the Pacific.

A lot of hotels downtown were fully booked, with mostly residents of low-lying settlements. We checked in at Asia Stars Hotel on one of the main avenues not far from the Port of Tacloban.

Of the emotional stories we documented, it was Jaca’s account, punctuated by smiles and tears, that struck the most strident chord in me.

Here was a mother driven to tears not by the loss of her loved ones or the deaths all around her, but by the erosion of her son’s humanity.

It was at some level a triumph of the spirit.

Orbeta and I arrived in Tacloban early Thursday morning. It was drizzling when our plane touched down in what then seemed to be an auspicious time.

“I want to tell my son that it’s not the time to be selfish,” she said, her eyes welling up. “I want him to understand that it is during times like this that we must help others. We should not be selfish.”

Her voice broke then, replaced by quiet sobs.

For the first time that day, I came close to crying, too.

All day, the Inquirer team consisting of myself and photographer Niño Jesus Orbeta walked the streets of Tacloban, absorbing the scenes of shock, terror, grief and desolation that had engulfed this city of 220,000 people.

Along with those neighbors, Jaca had taken refuge on the second floor of their house in a village overlooking Cancabato Bay. They survived, almost miraculously, the ferocious surge of wind and water that flattened entire villages and killed multitudes in the coastal parts of Leyte.

But something was bothering Jaca.

Her 33-year-old son, she said, was reluctant to let the neighbors stay with them and to share the week’s supply of food and water the family had stocked up in preparation for the storm.

Hers was the first true smile I saw that day, the sight of it so unexpected, so jarring, that I found myself asking the one question journalists were supposed to avoid during a catastrophe: “How are you?”

“We are all right. With God’s mercy we are all safe,” she replied.

Her name is Julita Jaca, and she is 65 years old. She was paying a visit to all the churches in town to say her prayers as her “way of thanking Mama Mary” for saving her and her neighbors.

here's a very interesting account of yolanda from someone who's been used to covering natural disasters.  worth a read.


Meeting a monster: First person account

By DJ Yap
Philippine Daily Inquirer
Sunday, November 17th, 2013

(Editor’s Note: DJ Yap, the Inquirer’s environment reporter, and photographer Niño Jesus Orbeta were the first Inquirer team sent from Manila to cover Supertyphoon “Yolanda” in Tacloban City. They arrived on Nov. 7, a day before the world’s strongest typhoon landed. His tweet on that fateful Friday morningâ€"“Sounds of glass shattering; hotel guests in lobby, restless, alarmed. ‘Jesus Christ,’ says our fotog Niño Orbeta. ‘Worse than Reming.’”â€"was the first and last time we heard from them until they sent word through GMA 7 on Saturday night that they made it through the storm.)

The woman’s smile was a ray of sunshine utterly out of place on that dark and desperate Friday.


AP File Photo

She was standing among the ruins of an old church in downtown Tacloban when I chanced upon her, just hours after Supertyphoon “Yolanda” (international name: “Haiyan”) tore into the city, sending its residents into the clutches of despair.

kaluoy.  kusog ra ba gyod ni sila mangluod.  di ha koy iro sa una, sabaan kaayo.  labad na kaayo akong ulo ug gusto na ko matug.  di gyod pabadlong, mao akong gitarget ug tsinelas.  hinay ra god to, pero di na gyod siya moduol nakog sobra usa ka semana.  inig duol nako, molikay dayon, mopalayo.  kapuliki gyod kog am-am.  since then i swore never to hit a dog again.

the text of that comment is translated from italian to english as follows (courtesy of bing online translation).  being a computer-generated translation, it's a loose and imperfect one, but we can get the drift:

Blizzard, you might say, Paolo Bonolis, that during the program Forward another performs in the gag in which she wears a black wig with Filipino and typical accent provides pearls of domestic economy: ' I'm Filipino and I do cleaning». A curtain that caused the angry reaction of the Filipino community. Also because, as emphasized by several representatives of the community, the disguise of Bonolis is introduced by the Philippine national anthem, heard by presenter holding a rag from dusting.

It is not an idea brullante, undoubtedly, especially if added to the frankly unfortunate timing of gags, arrived just a few days marked by the tragedy of the earthquake and the typhoon which hit the Asian country. So, a counselor of the Campidoglio, Romulo added Sabio Salvador, Philippine, wrote a letter to the authority for safeguards in communications (Agcom) on behalf of the Filipino community residing in Rome and addressed the National Bureau against racial discrimination (Unar) and Mediaset, asking for the production of public apology to Filipinos.

'The community is outraged by the representation of the new character proposed by the presenter Bonolis, "Filipino"-reads â€" which offers a stereotype so limiting the Filipino, who speaks in an unintelligible and works as a domestic worker. This parody "is even more deplorable â€" continues the letter â€" as it aired in a time slot that counts among the spectators even teenagers and children, contributing in this way to diffuse a hateful message that is opposed to the principle of integration between cultures which should, instead, be encouraged in a multi-ethnic society like ours.

Last but not least, as described has particularly touched the sensibilities of Filipino community that in this delicate moment of national mourning because of Typhoon Haiyan, would need moral support rather than free their dignity offended. " A slide, to Bonolis, undoubtedly. Accustomed to conducting style to poke fun at competitors, sometimes even over good taste, this time he hurt his accounts and lost the sense of proportion.

-from the italian text at http://www.secoloditalia.it/2013/11/lo-scivolone-di-bonolis-la-gag-del-filippino-fa-arrabbiare-la-comunita-residente-in-italia/

there is an online released comment on this particular show.

Lo scivolone di Bonolis: la gag del “filippino” fa arrabbiare la comunità residente in Italia
di Redazione/ven 15 novembre 2013

roughly translated as "gag angers filipino community in italy"

http://www.secoloditalia.it/2013/11/lo-scivolone-di-bonolis-la-gag-del-filippino-fa-arrabbiare-la-comunita-residente-in-italia/

your timing is insensitive, idiot paolo bonolis.