MikeLigalig.com

there's a video clip of this italian game show.  unfortunately, i don't know how to post it here.  but here are supposedly some facts:



this guy, host paolo bonolis, wears a wig to "imitate" how a filipino looks like.

in the show, the audience had fun laughing at the gags, which are supposedly putdowns for filipinos.

Quote from: islander on November 13, 2013, 12:16:35 AM
ISRAEL   

- team of medical, trauma and relief professionals

Quote from: islander on November 15, 2013, 03:36:55 PM

On the way to Cebu to set up a mobile hospital (Yaniv Revach photo,
November 13 via mobile)

Birth in Bogo

Israel is also involved in the response to Yolanda, with about 150 members of the Israeli Defense Forces Home Front Command setting up a field hospital in Bogo City in northern Cebu province.

On Friday, the Israeli army medics delivered a mother, who named her baby Israel.

An Israeli Embassy statement said on Saturday the attending physician, Dr. Reuven Keidar, held Israel in his arms and offered the traditional Hebrew congratulations to the parents: “Mazel Tov. It’s a boy.”


Read more: http://globalnation.inquirer.net/91373/global-aid-converges-on-typhoon-ravaged-areas#ixzz2kvCuxHTz

Quote from: islander on November 13, 2013, 12:08:06 AM
CHINA

- $100,000

- $1.6 million

China, which is locked in a territorial dispute with the Philippines, has promised $1.6 million in aid, mainly in tents and blankets, after widespread criticism of its initial modest response of a $100,000 government donation.

China said on Saturday it was ready to fulfill its aid pledges to the Philippines and help in the reconstruction of storm-ravaged Eastern Visayas.

Chinese Embassy spokesperson Zhang Hua said the aid would arrive soon.

“We are currently focusing on the prompt delivery of the supplies we pledged to the Philippines, which are fully ready now in China. We are waiting for the go-signal from the Philippine side. It’s expected to arrive anytime soon,” Zhang said.


Read more: http://globalnation.inquirer.net/91373/global-aid-converges-on-typhoon-ravaged-areas#ixzz2kvCG6YOM

Quote from: islander on November 13, 2013, 12:59:21 AM
VATICAN

- $150,000

***

VATICAN CITY -- VATICAN CITY (AP) â€" Pope Francis has led tens of thousands of people at the Vatican in silent prayer for the victims of the typhoon that has ravaged the Philippines.

The pope told a crowd of pilgrims, tourists and Romans in St. Peter's Square on Sunday that he wanted to assure the people of the Philippines and surrounding region that he feels close to them. He lamented the high toll of dead and the enormous damage, then requested silent prayer for "our brothers and sisters." Francis also said: "let us try to get our concrete aid" to those suffering from the storm.

The Philippines has the largest number of Catholics in Asia, and Filipinos are one of Rome's biggest immigrant communities. - http://www.huffingtonpost.com/

***

- $4 million

Abbas Momaniâ€"AFP/Getty Images
Nov. 8, 2013. A Palestinian youth wearing a gas mask to protect himself from tear gas, lobs a stone during clashes with Israeli soldiers close to the Israeli Ofer military prison, near the West Bank village of Betunia. (http://lightbox.time.com/)

Nuno Veigaâ€"EPA
Nov. 11, 2013. A hot air balloon participates in the 17th International Balloon BP Gas Festival at Fronteira, Portugal. (http://lightbox.time.com/)

Darko Vojinovicâ€"AP
Nov. 11, 2013. Serbian army soldiers take part in a ceremony marking Armistice Day at the French military cemetery in Belgrade, Serbia. (http://lightbox.time.com/)

When the crisis abates, it will also be time to ask if this operation is a first peek at the future of disaster response: when international aid gets criticized not for being late, but for needing to do more to help capable local responders, companies and communities get stuff done.

Correction: Western Union had already started to eliminate fees 2 days before this article’s publication and is expanding that program. Other companies also have implemented programs, including Ria and MoneyGram.

John Crowley is a research affiliate at the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative. He has been a consultant to U.N. agencies, U.S. government agencies, the World Bank, NATO and humanitarian NGOs. He tweets at @jcrowley. The views expressed are solely his own.


TIME.com http://ideas.time.com/

When journalists focus on looting and slow aid delivery, they miss the point. Information is aid. Their reports are part of weaving the fabric of a global Filipino community back together after a typhoon tore through their hometowns. By showing communities coming together, journalists can amplify the dynamics that save lives.

It is time to look at how effectively international organizations are supporting a normally well-oiled (but now struggling) domestic response capacity, not how international aid shipments are arriving late. It is time to ask why the cellular networks are not back and running, so that the diaspora can reunite with family and send money via mobile banking. It is time to make a request of financial institutions reduce or eliminate their surcharges on sending money to the Philippines from anywhere in the world.

What is different with Supertyphoon Haiyan (called Yolanda in the Philippines) is the unexpected level of storm surge and flooding, combined with sustained winds that exceeded 196 m.p.h. (315 km/h) with gusts far higher. The government is struggling to reach communities hit by one of the strongest storms ever to make landfall. Like the families I met in Staten Island after Superstorm Sandy, it seems that the water came in so fast that there was not time to flee, and the surge swelled well beyond what any city could survive. Six Filipino broadcasters risked their lives to keep Aksyon Radyo Tacloban DYVL running in Tacloban so that their listeners would know what was happening with the storm. Water filled the radio station in 10 seconds. Only one of their bodies has been found.

Ministries regularly preposition supplies and train disaster response across all levels of government. To ensure alignment with international agencies, legislators have integrated U.N. cluster coordination measures into national law. The private sector also plays an active role. After Typhoon Bopha, it built more than 75% of shelters. Civil-society groups are among the most active in the world and have global reach: 1 in 10 Filipinos live abroad, and they are sending money back home at staggering rates (predisaster, over 8.5% of national GDP came from remittances).

Here is where the reports go very wrong. According to a friend who has worked in Haiti and the Philippines, “What happens when media talk up security issues is that aid agencies get worried about security of distributions, so they hold off until they have adequate security support. The velocity of distribution is dramatically slowed down. Scaremongering undermines the relief effort.” This dynamic happened in Haiti, and it’s happening here.

The people of the Philippines are at risk of a multitude of disasters every year: earthquakes, tsunami, cyclones, floods, landslides and volcanic eruptions. The whole nation â€" government ministries, private-sector companies, the diaspora and civil-society organizations â€" has learned a great deal about how to respond to a typhoon.

For many families digging out from the storm, this delay is too long. Any stockpiles of food and water will have been washed away or shared. Having lost everything, most lack the resources to do more than subsist for a short while. Some might forage in damaged buildings. Most communities will pool resources and help one another survive.

When television crews race large cargo ships with airplanes and helicopters, the cameras will always win. Journalists will report on the gap between supply and demand. They will show the faces of people in need of Western largesse. They will turn isolated incidents of foraging and removal of goods from a truck or warehouse into a report on rampant looting.

When I talked with colleagues on the ground and friends who have worked in the Philippines, it became clear that these reports do not reflect the Philippines they know or the situation they are confronting. Worse, these reports are amplifying the problem. Here’s why:

After a disaster, there will always be delays in the delivery of aid. While planes and helicopters can arrive in 24 to 48 hours after the storm clears, massive deliveries can only arrive by ship, which can take several days to sail â€" longer if they have to sail around a massive storm. Worse, damaged ports may take weeks to fix. With severe damage like that in Tacloban, roads may be impassible for many days or weeks, making distribution of aid difficult.

Stop Catastrophizing Relief Efforts in the Philippines

The scaremongering is undermining delivery of supplies

By John Crowley Nov. 14, 2013
Time Magazine

In the Philippines, reports make it seem like it is déjà vu all over again. We hear that aid is not being shipped or distributed fast enough, that organizations are having trouble coordinating, and that looting is rampant and turning deadly.


Chris McGrath / Getty Images
People wait in line for flights out of the devastated area at Tacloban airport on Nov. 14, 2013 in Leyte, Philippines.

If these memes seem familiar, it because they each appeared after Hurricane Katrina and the earthquake response in Haiti. It makes us ask: Why have domestic disaster responders and international humanitarians not fixed the system yet? What’s broken? Who’s to blame for the delays in aid delivery?

vp binay's donation

davao city mayor duterte's donation

“I call again, and I keep trying and trying and trying but no one answered,” said Princess Howard, a worker at a money transfer business in Hong Kong, of her attempts to reach her 62-year-old grandfather and nine other relatives in the Leyte region that was flattened when Supertyphoon “Yolanda” (Haiyan) hit one week ago.

Sending $21.4 billion back home last year alone, Filipino overseas workers are a major part of their country’s economy, with their remittances equaling nearly 10 percent of gross domestic product. Spread out over more than 200 countries, they work as nurses in Europe, sugar cane laborers in Malaysia, housemaids in Hong Kong and construction workers in the oil-rich Middle East.


Read more: http://globalnation.inquirer.net/91301/filipinos-abroad-seek-news-rally-aid-after-yolanda#ixzz2ksqeggMR

Filipinos abroad seek news, rally aid after ‘Yolanda’

Associated Press
Saturday, November 16th, 2013


Filipino employees at an express company in Hong Kong pack boxes of donations from overseas workers at a shopping mall before they ship them to the survivors of Typhoon ‘Yolanda.’ AP

HONG KONGâ€"They gather in California churches, in Hong Kong shopping malls, at prayer vigils in Bahrain and on hastily launched Facebook pages. Filipino overseas workers, cut off from home after a super-typhoon killed thousands, are coming together to pray, swap information and launch aid drives.

Above all, many of the more than 10.5 million Filipinos abroad â€" some 10 percent of the country’s population â€" are desperately dialing phone numbers that don’t answer in the typhoon zone, where aid is still only slowly trickling in and communications have been largely blown away.

Lakers

- $150,000 to PH Red Cross


Los Angeles Lakers’ Kobe Bryant, center, poses with young basketball players from the Philippines as he presents the Los Angeles Lakers’ donation check to the Philippine Red Cross during an NBA basketball game between the Los Angeles Lakers and the Memphis Grizzlies on Friday, Nov. 15, 2013, in Los Angeles. AP http://sports.inquirer.net/

why man nangluod?  gikan gilatos?  luoy ra pod...

nice of you to be directly involved in the relief efforts, lorenz.  you can imagine how encouraging such acts are, multiplied thousands of times by the smallest act of a japanese pre-schooler to a filipino taxi driver. it increases our hope for humanity a thousand times as well.

i bet my little finger fr chic is still on relief efforts himself, whether he's in bohol or in new orleans. 

ayaw, ayaw tawon ninyo nganli ug yolanda ug yolando inyong mga anak...

Japanese soldier's son

Meanwhile, in Japan, a son of a Japanese soldier who died in the Philippines during World War II gave Y200,000 (over P87,000) for Yolanda victims, the Philippine Embassy in Japan said.

"My father lies sleeping in a mountain somewhere in Luzon," said Kenji Hirakawa, who said he was just three months old when his father left to serve in the Japanese Imperial Army.

“I am enclosing here JPY200,000 for all the troubles my father may have caused to the Filipino people,” he said, adding he hopes the money will help alleviate the plight of the typhoon victims.

However, the embassy said Hirakawa did not write down a contact number.

"In the end his generous gesture and its impetus only prove that, after all that has been said and done, history will always bind the Philippines and Japan together," the embassy said. â€" LBG, GMA News

Quote from: islander on November 13, 2013, 12:05:14 AM
CANADA

- C$5 million

Canadian individuals and businesses already donated some $15.7 million in aid, [Prime Minister Stephen Harper] noted.

The Canadian government has committed to match donations by individual Canadians.

“These acts of generosity and compassion towards the victims of the typhoon can be seen across the country. I am proud that our Government is matching the generosity of individual Canadians dollar for dollar, in addition to the immediate emergency assistance we are providing and the deployment of elements of the Canadian Armed Forces' Disaster Assistance Response Team and the Canadian Red Cross medical team,” Harper said. (http://www.gmanetwork.com/)

Quote from: islander on November 13, 2013, 12:57:37 AM
UNITED KINGDOM     

- £6 million
- $9.6 million worth of emergency support package

Quote from: islander on November 14, 2013, 08:49:46 AM
An appeal by UK charities to help Philippines typhoon victims has raised £13m ($20m) in its first 24 hours.

The storm hit the Philippines on Friday, killing more than 2,000 people, and the Disasters Emergency Committee (DEC) launched its appeal on Tuesday.

The DEC, which brings together 14 major UK charities, said the response had been "overwhelming".

The UK government has pledged to match donations up to a total of £5m, on top of £10m it has already agreed to give.


The UK-chartered plane carrying emergency shelter kits arrived in Cebu overnight


Aid for the Philippines is also being readied at Oxfam's warehouse in Bicester, Oxfordshire


more at http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-24928593

UK Prime Minister David Cameron has doubled the contribution for Yolanda victims to £50 million (over P3.5B), UK Ambassador to the Philippines Asif Ahmad tweeted Saturday afternoon.

Ahmad added the UK will also send two C-130 planes to transfer supplies within the Philippines. (http://www.gmanetwork.com/)

Children run toward a US military aircraft on Thursday as it arrives to distribute aid to super typhoon Yolanda survivors of Guiuan, Samar. Though aid has started to arrive in Guiuan, residents in the nearby town of Marabut complained that aid has been far too slow to come AP Photo/David Guttenfelder

what a great way to show unity.

oftentimes, real counterchecking of information, at source, is better than relying on mere impressions.  we can get real.

Not enough? No presence? Please. Certainly not from want of trying. And given the limitations of equipment because the money for them was going elsewhere.

The military is not the only one who is getting a raw deal here. Local government officials (all right, maybe some of them are tying their relief services to votes) have been criticized, too. And the central government, including the President. I think they’ve done a hell of a job. They cannot be judged based on one city aloneâ€"Tacloban. Only consider: Do you really think anyone could have done better there, when 98 percent of the city had been destroyed, including the airport?


http://opinion.inquirer.net/

By Thursday, 15 naval vessels had transported relief goods, equipment and personnel in affected areas in Eastern and Western Visayas. Aircraft had flown 216 sorties carrying 379,369 lbs of relief goods and 267,183 lbs of other cargo (fuel, equipment, etc.).  The military literally threw everything it had into the effort, including land vehicles (81 trucks), 23 aircraft, and 17 Navy vessels (from five tons to 2,000 tons).  This, aside from the 3,000 men sent to help the 12,000 men already in the area. It established six monitoring hubs over the Visayas, presided over by five brigadier generals and one colonel.  Serving the Filipino people.

By Nov. 9, other ships and air assets were carrying everything from cadaver bags to medicines to food, as well as communications equipment, fuel and personnel to Roxas; Kalibo, Aklan; San Jose, Antique; Guiuan, Eastern Samar; northern Panay; northern Palawan (including Coron); Negros Island; Masbate; and Cebu City. How do you think we got the information that 7,251 barangays in 471 municipalities and 51 cities in 41 provinces, involving 2.1 million families, were devastated?

The first military sortie was carried out on Nov. 9,  by the GHQ Crisis Action Team and Medical Teams with 7,000 pounds of relief goods and food packs that were prepared four-five days earlier. The Air Force and Navy began transporting Humanitarian Assistance and Disaster Relief (HADR) assets and equipment coordinated by a command post in Tacloban (at the police station). A C-130 was used to bring 50 drums of oil for use of their other air assets in rescue and transport work. The same efforts were made in the cities of Roxas and Iloilo.  Two Navy ships (DF 341 and DF 352) were also deployed to bring aid and relief goods to Carles and Estancia in northern Iloilo.

“Yolanda” hit land on Nov. 8 and wiped out all communications. The Army commander for Eastern Visayas, Brig. Gen. Jet Belarmino, with HQ beside the Tacloban airport, had to bore a hole in the ceiling of his quarters to survive the rising waters. And Lt. Col. Fermin Carangan of the Air Force was swept out to sea for six hours; he managed to survive, and save a 7-year-old boy in the process.

But I’d like to focus on the alleged lack of Philippine military presence (although Cooper admitted that they were cleaning up the area around the airport). I called up the Armed Forces chief of staff, Gen. Emmanuel Bautista, who gave details of the military participation.  The military participated, quietly (perhaps too quietly), but effectively. The conversation with Bautista was followed up by a 7-page report from Col. Ramon Zagala.

Of course, Defense Secretary Volt Gazmin didn’t help matters. He was quoted as saying that there was something wrong with the system (of relief), and that politics was rearing its ugly head. He was at a loss to explain where the bottleneck was, in the first instance, although he chairs the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Committee (NDRRMC). In the second instance, he apparently based his conclusion about politics on the accounts of two victims, which he then expanded to the whole of local government (which is the same logic that Cooper used).

Of course, Defense Secretary Volt Gazmin didn’t help matters. He was quoted as saying that there was something wrong with the system (of relief), and that politics was rearing its ugly head. He was at a loss to explain where the bottleneck was, in the first instance, although he chairs the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Committee (NDRRMC). In the second instance, he apparently based his conclusion about politics on the accounts of two victims, which he then expanded to the whole of local government (which is the same logic that Cooper used).

Anderson Cooper came on Day 5.  He probably didn’t know that the airport reopened on Day 4, and was aghast at conditions there. He said things like “the scene here at the airport is desperate,” “I have not seen a large Philippine military presence out around here,” “Philippine military personnel are cleaning up the area around the airport … first time we’re seeing this,” “people line up and they are here all day for a handful of flights.” People should understand that his analysis of Philippine relief efforts were based on one location only: Tacloban airport. He did walk around, but was constrained by the fact that there were NO VEHICLES available for use, so his analysis was severely limited.

Take the United Nations emergency relief coordinator Valerie Amos. Her analysis of the situation was absolutely balanced, but by the time it got out to us, she was made to look critical of the Philippine government. No one paid attention to the reasons she gave for the difficulty of distributing relief goods:  lack of air assets (not including the Tacloban airport, which was destroyed and took three days to reopen), shortage of vehicles for waste management (so debris and roadblocks could be cleared), lack of coordination by local officials (understandable, she says, because they were affected by the storm, too).  I cannot see how the government is answerable for that.

real, well-researched data are usually credited to this economist/academician/columnist who suffers no fools.

Get Real

Blame game

By Solita Collas-Monsod
Philippine Daily Inquirer
Saturday, November 16th, 2013

Shoulda, woulda, coulda. That seems to be the blame game everyone is playing now with regard to our relief efforts.  We coulda done this, or we shoulda gone that way, or we woulda made more of a difference. And to buttress our self-flagellation, we misquote or take out of context what foreigners say about our efforts.

A rainbow appears over Tacloban Pier on Friday, seemingly pointing at Calvary Hill one week after Yolanda wrecked the city. Raffy Tima, GMA News

or the song that came about a decade later--"we don't need another hero".

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry

Photo By YURI GRIPAS/REUTERS
“On behalf of the people of the United States, I offer our deepest condolences and solidarity as you wrestle with the devastation and loss of life that accompanied Super Typhoon Haiyan. The United States stands ready to help, our embassies in the Philippines and Palau are in close contact with your governments, and our most heartfelt prayers are with your governments, and our most heartfelt prayers are with you.”


http://ph.news.yahoo.com/

U.S. President Barack Obama

Photo By Jim Watson
“Michelle and I are deeply saddened by the loss of life and extensive damage done by Super Typhoon Yolanda. But I know the incredible resiliency of the Philippine people, and I am confident that the spirit of Bayanihan will see you through this tragedy. The United States is already providing significant humanitarian assistance, and we stand ready to further assist the Government's relief and recovery efforts. Our thoughts and prayers go out to the millions of people affected by this devastating storm.”

China President Xi Jinping

Photo By JASON LEE/REUTERS
“I was saddened to learn that super Typhoon Haiyan hit the Phillipines, and has caused massive casualties and huge property losses. On behalf of the Chinese People, I extend heartfelt sympathies to the Philippine people and profound condolences to the victims. May the Philippine people overcome the disaster and rebuild their homeland at an early date.”

Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper

Photo By BLAIR GABLE/REUTERS
“Our thoughts and prayers are with all those affected by this devastating natural disaster. Canada is standing by to offer any possible assistance to the Philippines in responding to this emergency. Our officials in Ottawa and at our mission in Manila continue to closely monitor the situation, and remain in contact with relevant local officials and humanitarian partners.”

British Prime Minister David Cameron
(through his office’s spokesperson)

Photo By NEIL HALL/Reuters
“This weekend we announced a package of £6 million emergency humanitarian support to help more than 500,000 people affected by the storm, including temporary shelters and essential household items. We have also sent 4 humanitarian experts to the Philippines to assist 3 advisers already in the country helping to coordinate the international response.”

Queen Elizabeth

Photo By Matthew Lloyd/Getty Images
“I was deeply saddened to hear of the loss of life and devastation caused by the typhoon that hit the Philippines at the weekend. Prince Philip joins me in offering our heartfelt condolences to the victims and their families at this difficult time. Our deepest sympathies go out to all those whose lives have been affected.”

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki Moon
(through his spokesperson)

Photo By JOE PENNEY/REUTERS
“The Secretary-General thanks UN Member States for their prompt response, including bilateral funds, relief teams and civil-military support. He urges the international community to continue to show their solidarity with the people of the Philippines.”

Pope Francis

[size=8
7pt]Photo By ALESSANDRO BIANCHI/REUTERS[/size]
“I ask all of you to join me in prayer for the victims of Typhoon Haiyan/Yolanda especially those in the beloved islands of the Philippines.”

In Qatar, meanwhile, a girl named Lana, who is cared for by a Filipina nanny, has given up her allowance and asked her classmates do the same for Yolanda victims.

“Bago siya pumasok sa school kanina tinanong niya ako, ‘Ya Jo how much my one riyal in the Philippines?’” Jovelyn Revilla shared in her Facebook post.

When she told her ward that her riyal would translate to P11 or P12, Revilla said Lana’s face lit up and said, “Oh my god! The children can buy food in my one riyal?”

“Give to the kids that I saw crying in the news, Ya Jo… I will tell my classmate to give one riyal for you to send to the Philippines,” Revilla recalled Lana as saying. (http://ph.news.yahoo.com/)

Yahoo Southeast Asia Newsroom/Mae Paner - From Mae Paner's Facebook page: Some good news to share: Anton, 9yrs. old gave all of his savings (P979 + coins) to survivors of Yolanda. He wants suffering to stop in evacuation centers. He wants stealing to stop too and that there be peace again. Thank you Anton! (http://ph.news.yahoo.com/)

A photo of two young American girls selling lemonade also made rounds online on Friday.

A group of Filipino-American nurses from Registered Nurse Response Network left for the Philippines from San Francisco on Friday to address the shortage of medical practitioners in the field. Each nurse's flight has been sponsored by generous souls abroad.

"The Philippines needs our help," the banner they carried reads.


Registered nurse Jan Rodolfo speaks at a news conference at San Francisco International Airport. The nurses behind the banner are from local hospitals, at the event, to show support to the nurses traveling to the Philippines. AP/George Nikitin


http://www.philstar.com/

Moving stories from overseas

A photo of a 6-year-old Japanese boy, Shoichi Kondoh, who emptied his piggybank for typhoon victims in the Philippines went viral on Friday.


Photo from the Philippine Embassy in Tokyo shows Second Secretary and Consul Bryan Dexter Lao receiving the envelope from pre-schooler Shoichi Kondoh.

"Accompanied by his mother, Miho Kondoh, Shoichi visited the Philippine Embassy today to personally hand-over his donation of JPY 5,000 taken from his piggybank savings," the Philippine Embassy in Tokyo reported.

"Lampas 200 daw ang fare nung mga passengers, pero hindi na niya siningil. Simpleng tulong na lang daw niya para sa mga kababayan natin," the user said.

Two young students from an Olongapo public school knocked at a local newspaper's office with a sizeable plastic bag filled with food items.

"Tinanong ko sila kung sino nagpapunta (sa kanila) at saan galing ang mga dala nila. Sabi ni Clerianne Cerrada at Patrick San Agustin na sila lang mismo ang nag ipon ng relief good mula sa donasyon ng kanilang mga kaklase sa 1st year," journalist Anthony Bayarong recounted on his Facebook wall.

Manila resident Ginggay Pajaro encountered the generosity of a certain store owner in Bambang while she was shopping for medical items for victims in Tacloban.

"When I was about to leave [the store], its owner called me and handed me 2 thousand pesos. I asked 'para saan po ito?' She answered 'I-bili mo ng biskwit at ipadala mo sabay ng mga gamot.' I asked for her name but she said 'Di bale na'," Pajaro recounted.

A Facebook user told the story of a Manila cab driver she met who had refugees from Tacloban as passengers.

A group called Yolanda Citizen Watch, meanwhile, extends help in a unique way: By tracking relief and recovery funds to ensure its disbursement to those affected by natural disasters.

"Citizens say no to the loss of a single centavo to corruption in calamity funds," the group said.

Small acts, big impact

The abounding stories of little acts of kindness show how despite differences, millions of Filipinos share one desire in this tragic period of the country's history.

Student Jem Monedo who still has not received her allowance from her parents spent the little that's left of her resources by placing some biscuits, crackers and bottles of water in individual packs, labeled with "Kapit lang " or "Hold on."


Photo courtesy of Jem Monedo

While generous amounts of donations are from organizations and businesses, most came from nameless citizens and their families.

In cyberspace, social networks are brimming with calls for more relief, inspirational quotes in graphics, volunteers' stories and photos of goods neatly enveloped in sando bags and ready for sending.

Lists of volunteer opportunities--and not job openings--periodically appear on timelines and threads as more repacking sites mushroom.

An airline's cargo house in Parañaque City houses volunteers who drop in on their spare time to pack goods to be flown to disaster-hit areas. Several young people march to the Philippine Army gymnasium in Taguig City to assist in preparing food and items.

Others are assisting the weary staff of the Department of Social Welfare and Development in at least six sites across the metro.

Metro Manila Universities are similarly buzzing with activity--centers of learning have turned into storehouses overnight after the monster howler pounded on Visayas last November 8. Student leaders keep the momentum at stations for categorizing items, packing them and placing labels and students and teachers alike come and go in between classes to lend a hand.

Mammoth relief, acts of kindness lighten 'Yolanda' tragedy

By Camille Diola (philstar.com)
November 15, 2013

MANILA, Philippines - Amid the public's mounting frustration on government-aid efforts, thousands of private citizens have launched mammoth relief drives, proividing  the foreground of the catastrophe.

In a warehouse that survived  in the virtually flattened-out city of Tacloban, hundreds of volunteers are crouched on mats and sitting atop sacks of rice to repack food relief for the innumerable typhoon victims.

The scene is all too similar in various parts of the country that have been spared by the storm's might.


Students and professors of nearby schools repack relief goods at DSWD-Mactan Airbase Repacking Hub, Cebu City. DSWD photo

Quote from: islander on November 13, 2013, 12:16:35 AM
ISRAEL   

- team of medical, trauma and relief professionals

On the way to Cebu to set up a mobile hospital (Yaniv Revach photo,
November 13 via mobile)

Briefing the Israeli team before their departure to Tacloban Philippines. 120 doctors and medical stuff. Fully equipped field hospital.

Nature has been cruel to the Phillipines and the Jewish people wish to support you in times of crisis! (Yaniv Revach photo, November 12

kahilakon man ko ani, loll.  how thoughtful of them to have bothered with such encouragements on such "strange" writing pads/cans.

two LA girls do their part in this photo that also went viral

Photo from the Philippine Embassy in Tokyo shows Second Secretary and Consul Bryan Dexter Lao receiving the envelope from pre-schooler Shoichi Kondoh.

A photo of a 6-year-old Japanese boy, Shoichi Kondoh, who emptied his piggybank for typhoon victims in the Philippines went viral on Friday.

"Accompanied by his mother, Miho Kondoh, Shoichi visited the Philippine Embassy today to personally hand over his donation of JPY 5,000 taken from his piggybank savings," the Philippine Embassy in Tokyo reported. (http://www.philstar.com/)

enough with resting.  LORENZ, how are your relatives in leyte?

arang gyod ni si ichigo, hehe.  iring nga liwat sa tag-iya...

actually, real politicians hereabouts have balls for brains.

zimbahkoh.  mas duol-duol tawon ko ni senator nancy.

active ra ba to sa relief ops sa bohol earthquake; way kisaw, way itsi-buritsi.  tingalig tua na pod to karon sa samar.  wa sa tacloban kay tua si anderson cooper of CNN didto.  ayaw niyang ma-televised, e.

Tacloban City, Post-Yolanda

if weeping cleanses, now is the time.

Quote from: hubag bohol on November 15, 2013, 11:36:44 AM
Hmm, just an aside: Madame CJ, kon Binay vs. Roxas for president, kinsay imong botaran?

si bugsay.

my heart bleeds for the people, and my IQ is high! vote for me! i am the best for you!

apil na sa ilang campaign slogan, in keeping with their lines that they care for the people?

So my friends who accuse me of Aquino bashing: I want you to know that I’m done with your line of thinking. Either you defend this man or you defend the people that this man is ignoring. Don’t believe that the people are his “boss”. This was a piece of advertising sound byte created by showbiz experts to get the unthinking masses out there to swallow this uniquely unqualified man. This man who is totally unprepared for the most difficult job in the country. So my friends, as far as I’m concerned, you choose him or you choose the people. But if you instruct me again to stop bashing this man I am unfriending you. I will unfriend you in Facebook, on Twitter, on Instagram, and out in our leaderless streets.

-from a viral thing that may or may not be contagious - islander

In a very Yellow Army way, they try to hide behind an illogical argument that we cannot help if we criticize. I don’t know how good these friends are at multi-tasking, but one does not cancel out the other. We can help and we can criticize. And at this point I am convinced that we do help when we criticize; if at one point we can, as Hamlet says, “catch the conscience of the king.” But I know that this is futile. This man is no king. He is not even a real representative. What can you expect from someone who never worked an honest day in his life. What could he possibly relate to?

This is a crime. What this man does is unconscionable. I can only state it here. I can do nothing about it for now. I will wait for whatever movement develops after this fiasco and I will join it. But for now, what I can do is to declare that I am deeply offended by the people who try to stop me and others from stating the obvious. All those people who charge us for criticizing, for being negative, for Aquino bashing â€" I am done with these people.

So what now? There’s nothing I can actually do. I can only rage, rage against the dying of common decency. I can only rage against this man who claimed in a Christiane Amanpour interview that he couldn’t get to the disaster areas because the weather after the storm left didn’t permit him to fly. This is 24 hours after the sun was shining all over the Philippines by then. I can only rage against a man who made light of the tragedy, refusing to identify it as a major disaster; who made light of a victim of looting who was shot at by telling him, “But you did not die, right?” I rage against a man who continually blames the LGU’s on the ground for their incompetence and their inefficiency because it is beginning to dawn on me that these Visayan LGU’s happen to be Romualdez people and this man is playing politics with people’s lives.

So I very much care now where all this help is going. I read Marvin Xanth Geronimo who was there when Yolanda struck: that TV personalities and politicians like Mar Roxas and Ted Failon going to Tacloban for the photo op. They never helped; endless tracking video shots of flattened towns with people walking clutching a plastic bottle of water with no government presence whatsoever; Korina Sanchez calling Anderson Cooper “misinformed”. Cooper was in Tacloban. Korina was not; the US landing 5 planes full of goods and not allowing any politicians to touch any of it. How much more do we need for us to realize that the enemy was not Yolanda? Yolanda was just a force of nature. The enemy is our leaders. And the leader of our leaders is the President.

I am a private citizen and like most of my fellow citizens, have given of what I have to the relief effort. I have given to the point of hurting. I am 70 years old and have been stupid a lot of times for seven decades. I want to think that I can be a little less stupid now. This time, I want to make sure that my hard-earned money will reach its intended goal. I am sick and tired of throwing away my money; of making our politicians wealthy because of my unconcern and my inattention. I am sick and tired of my stupidity.

I don’t think that anybody, even the most criminal politician, can be that hard-hearted and close his eyes to this calamity so I can only surmise that they don’t know what to do. That they are impotent and incompetent. I am 70 years old and I don’t know what to do, but then again, I didn’t run for office promising the voters that I would take care of national concerns.

This disaster has affected, not only the islands in the path of Yolanda, but all of us as a nation. We have all been judged and found wanting. But more worrisome, is that we take a long hard look at our leaders and we judge and we find them wanting. It is worrisome because we have chosen them and are paying them to serve the needs of our nation and it seems that they can’t deliver.

What our leaders tell us is also contradicted by the victims in these areas who are slowly able to give us the true picture of the realities of the situation. And the reality is that people are starving. The dead still lie on the streets even five days after the event. There are anguished souls scavenging for whatever they can to survive, as well as professional looters ambushing the helpless and relief caravans. It’s a war zone out there.

It is increasingly apparent that local media goes hand in hand with self-servicing Malacañang press releases which are more concerned with their showbiz image than confronting, accepting and dealing with the problem. What our leaders tell us is contradicted by the reports from international commentators who are understandably more objective and growing less dispassionate as they witness the horrors around them.

Because of this, we are fighting friends in coffee houses, on the telephone, and on Facebook. We are a people whose lives have been upended. We don’t know what to do to get things done right and right away. We lash out. We insult our leaders trying to get them to do a lot more than to pose for photo ops â€" of giving out relief goods on a one-by-one basis. We cry desperately for demonstrable government response â€" we get almost next to nothing.

Not since Marcos have we as a people been so polarized. As far as our hearts and minds are concerned it’s like we’re in the edge of a civil war. We are forced to take a hard look at ourselves and what we value.

their twisted analysis is only turning off the public.  not enough brains there, but much balls for being so thick-faced.

a different kind of politicking?  could be the reason why binay is doubling his time at seeing to it that he does not disappear in the public consciousness.  2016, here they come!

according to one of her classmates who i happen to know, she didn't finish second year college in a school that she attended in manila.  but she wanted a diploma, reasoning that she's already doing a good job, a communications job, at the course that she pursued anyway.  when the school administration refused, she started attacking them, rendering them enemies for life, using her job and clout. 

well, d.o. plaza who became a politician when he supposedly finished only grade 4 wasn't given an academic diploma in public administration, right?  he didn't ask for it either.  it looks like plaza must have better brains then. 

according to one broadsheet columnist, she's beyond knowing that she's operating on conflict of interest. 

it looks like politicians are beyond the radar of debriefing, pre-trauma.