Reflections of a Typhoon Yolanda Survivor (Part II)

Immediately after Yolanda effectively destroyed Tacloban, the Philippine national government was essentially absent. The local government was as destroyed as the city it was tasked to govern. For one, the city mayor, Alfred Romualdez and his family barely survived the onslaught of the tsunami-like storm surge, indeed, he and his family were holed up right beside the properties they owned - by the sea! 

It is clear that even the city mayor did not know of the impending storm surge, much less the ordinary populace of Tacloban. The absence of a strong national government presence ensured that the looting, rape and murder that would follow Yolanda will terrorize the survivors of Yolanda, not only in Tacloban City, but even in the surrounding municipalities equally ravaged by the supertyphoon such as Tanauan and Palo. 

On November 9, the day after Yolanda, I went to the city hall of Tacloban to get any food they could give. I was told that the relief food would be coursed through the barangay. At that time, it seemed a good idea. Boy how wrong I could be - for as is usual in the Philippines, corruption on a massive, really scandalous scale would hound the relief distribution process.

For one, the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD), supposedly the government arm to take a lead in the distribution of relief efforts, was 'repackaging' aid given from foreign nations, such that imported canned goods were surreptitiously replaced with local made sardines, sardines that in some cases were damaged that the labels were torn, the cans were deformed - among others.

Then came the role of the barangay captains, some of whom also 'repackaged' the relief goods entrusted to them for distribution such that 5 kilos of rice were distributed after deducting two kilos, worse, some barangay captains chose for whom the relief goods were given, even worse, other barangay captains refused to coordinate with NGO's for the distribution of aid within their jurisdictions.

It is ironic that during elections, candidates always to seem to have a complete listing of eligible voters, their addresses and even ages - people whose votes need to be bought are not a problem. After Yolanda, everyone who wants to get help will have to muster all the stops just to be listed and hence, to be able to get the chance of getting relief goods. 

Immediately after Yolanda, strife was what would best describe Tacloban, law and order broke down as massive looting, rapes and even murders were committed at an alarmingly unchecked manner. Politics played, as it has always been played in the Philippines, in the effort to help the survivors. Videos abound showing the meeting between DILG Secretary Mar Roxas and Tacloban City Mayor Alfred Romualdez whereby the former clearly telling the latter that "...the President is an Aquino and that you are a Romualdez..."

That statement, in retrospect, was how the national government's sclerotic response to the aftermath of Yolanda can best be explained. Politics not only worsened the plight of the survivors, it clearly shows that politics in no uncertain terms is what is killing this nation and effectively impoverishes the vast majority of the Filipino people as patronage politics excludes the public interest in favor of vested interests.

In my barangay, the situation was actually worse, since the election the previous October 28, our then outgoing barangay captain lost, the barangay captain elect was due to resume office only by December 1, and so from November 9 up to the end of the month, the out-going barangay captain would still hold office, and boy did she use politics to give help, having lost in our area (Area 1, since our barangay is relatively bi there are three areas for purposes of grouping), no aid was really distributed in our place for the whole of November. 

It seems that the out-going captain prioritized her area (Area 2, where she lives). Apparently, she used the remaining days of her office to ensure that her political supporters were taken cared off before she finally leaves power. That, to the detriment of the other constituents of the barangay, who had to use whatever means they have at their disposal to ensure for themselves enough relief to sustain them and their families. 

Chaos, corruption and inefficiency was what characterized the relief distribution process. Really, the entire thing was nothing but an exercise in political ineptness, blatant corruption and clearly the failure of the citizens to choose leaders who have the balls, the brains and the sincerity to actually serve. This is the price we paid for bought elections. Elections peopled by candidates who shelled money to win and pretended to serve, and the people who enabled them by demanding to be bought and pretending to choose.

Really, I cannot blame the politics engendered by a citizenry with myopic views of what suffrage is all about and what democracy truly entails, prudence in our choices and discipline in our actions. 

The ensuing tragedy in the aftermath of Yolanda was for me the greater tragedy for it showed that the Filipino people as a whole and the victims of Yolanda in particular have a long way to go in order to finally stamp out the scourge of bureaucratic paralysis that seems to characterize not only disaster planning and response in the Philippines but even more so, everyday governance in one of the poorest regions of one of the poorest countries in the world. 

Unless the nation wakes up from the slumber of national governance, Yolanda will repeat itself. As the great George Santayana once said, "Those who do not learn from history are condemned to repeat it."

Reflections of a Typhoon Yolanda Survivor (Part I)

It's been almost two months since the November 8, 2013 onslaught of Supertyphoon Yolanda, dubbed by CNN as the strongest typhoon in recorded history ever to make landfall, and Tacloban City, the city of my birth, my childhood and my family, is still reeling from the death and devastation that Yolanda brought.

I miss updating this blog, it's been a while since my last entry. Electricity in our place is still down and out, another two months will probably last before we get our power back. Right now I'm in an internet café in downtown Tacloban, one of a few that opened last December. Lucky for this internet café, it's located on the second floor of a concrete building. I spoke with the owner a few minutes back and she said she lost only two computer systems (monitor, CPU, keyboard and the like).

Anyway, having this opportunity to get connected is something I really, really miss - and I relish this moment with the excitement of a three year old getting hold of his favorite candy treat!

Yolanda still permeates many a conversation for a lot of Taclobanons, and I suspect, to a lot of people in Eastern Visayas who had to endure its awesome fury and unimaginable fierceness.

November 8, 2013 will forever be etched in my mind and in the collective memory of those who were directly in Yolanda's path, the people of Eastern Visayas will never forget November 8 or Yolanda or the horrific aftermath that followed.

My house is directly across the street lining Kankabato Bay, a body of water that abuts Tacloban City. It's a moderately sized bay, shallow but has a muddy bed. When I was in elementary, I once witnessed a swimmer who drowned in its waters after apparently getting entangled in its muddy bottom.

I live in a house that is a bungalow, with four rooms, three bathrooms, two kitchens and a two-car garage. It's been my home since I was four years old. I like my house, my neighborhood and my city. My father and I have been living in said house alone since 2009. After my grandmother died, my grandfather on my maternal side decided to live in California, where my mother and two sisters are based. My grandfather loves America, only my grandma's dislike of the California cold prevented him from staying there.

November 4 was a Monday. The previous October 29 I started work as a Legal Researcher in a city law firm. As I entered the office on that day, one of the office personnel blurted out that a supertyphoon is on its way, at that time, Yolanda was way out in the southern Pacific ocean. That night, media reports calculated that Yolanda would make landfall by Friday morning. By Tuesday morning, the office head announced that there would be no office on Wednesday, November 6. That day was as bright as any summer day could be. The sun was out in all its radiant brightness. The sky was sparkling blue with a light smattering of clouds. It was, so to speak, the calm before the storm.

Thursday, November 7 was a rainy day. The sky was overcast with heavy clouds. Rain poured throughout the day and into the wee hours of the next day. I could not sleep the entire night. By 6 a.m., November 8, 2013, I was roused from bed as Yolanda made itself known. The winds were starting to pick up with a ferocity I have never before experienced in a typhoon, then again, Yolanda was not just any typhoon, it was a super-typhoon.

By 6:30 a.m. the winds were pounding our house when the lights finally flamed out. The wind was becoming ferocious by the minute, a few minutes back a classmate texted me hoping that everything will just be fine, and I replied with a hope that indeed everything will just be fine.

7 a.m. and the wind was so strong that it produced a whistling sound unlike any I have heard before. Eerie rumble of sustained hushing sound permeated the skies above. I was truly scared and afraid. The garage roof where our car was parked was being slowly unhinged until it finally collapsed on our car. At that moment I knew the worse is coming, I could only shed a tear as the unknown becomes fearsome as the morning came.

By 7:30 a.m. the main door of our house was suddenly opened free by the rush of what later would be described as tsunami-like storm surge. I shouted at my father to close the door immediately and we rushed to my room, unbeknownst to me, my father went back to his room to save important documents. I waited in the dining hall of my room as the flood slowly rose. I stood on a chair hoping that the water would be at worst knee length - boy how wrong I was as the water slowly reached my chin and over our cupboards and cabinets until finally my father appeared, lips blue and telling me to remove the jalousie windows so we could get out of the house. I was frantic. Floating through the now flooded dining area I calmly tried to remove the first five jalousie's from my windows, the water was barely an inch before it would reach the upper most part of the window sill. I had no choice but to dive under the murky, jet-black, salty water. I alighted on the other side of the window and waited for my father to get out. Instead, he blurted for me to pull him out as he was exhausted. I later learned that he momentarily drowned - hence the blue lips when he first appeared after we got separated.

Outside the house, we clung to the trusses of our roofless house - well at least on the side just outside my bedroom's window. There, we clung for two and a half hours as the flood waters reached 10 feet, in our house at least. The entire time, my body was shaking, trying to produce heat against the cold of the water and the wind and the rain lambasting our bodies.

By 10 a.m., the flood started to subside, by 11 a.m., we went out to survey the damage. Thank goodness our gate held against the water, for it saved us from tons of debris that piled sky high just outside our gate. In fact, as we climbed over the debris to get to the street, a protruding nail from some wooden plank punctured my foot.

Lunchtime and the typhoon has basically passed us by. Leaving a scene that will forever scar the minds of those who lived to tell its tale. Everything outside our village was destroyed. Luckily, all of the ten houses in our village survived Yolanda with a few, including ours, suffering nothing but damaged roofs. Approximately 10 corrugated roofing sheets were flown away by Yolanda. One of my neighbors practically had their entire roof removed!

The same could not be said of other parts of the city such as San Jose, Magallanes Street, and Diit, where practically legions of houses were wiped clean from the face of the earth. Death was everywhere. The national government was nowhere.

People were desperate, hungry, tired, broken and lost in the chaos, destruction and darkness of Yolanda's aftermath. Everything in my house was inundated by the flood, all electronic gadgets were destroyed. The wall of my bathroom was pushed against my neighbors wall by the force of the water that it opened the sides of the wall.

3 p.m., drenched in the flood brought by Yolanda, I walked five kilometers to the city centre to a friend's house to ask for food for me and my father for the night. It was my first meal for the day, November 8.

By 6 p.m., I was walking back to my house. We could not live inside the house for the night, indeed for the next five days so me and my father would sleep in a bus owned by my cousin washed just outside our gate by the flood. The bus floor was muddy but we had to sleep for the night.

WE survived Yolanda on November 8, 2013, but the coming days will test us even more as government inefficiency, corruption and political bickering would claim more lives, hopes and dreams.

Immediately after Yolanda, hospitals and hotels in the city discharged guests and closed shop - for a while until aid organizations and NGO's arrived to take over the relief efforts. One hospital even closed for good and declared bankruptcy. MSF (Medicins sand frontiers) took over its premises a few days later.

In the ensuing days, Tacloban would be gripped by massive looting as the national government idly took time to respond to our plight.

The real tragedy has just begun....