Philippines

“Tacloban and the island of Leyte have received wide media coverage, but Panay Island mustn’t be forgotten,” said Father Mark Granflor, director of the Social Action Centre of the archdiocese of Capiz (the diocesan Caritas office). “Here too, families have been very badly hit and people are suffering. More than 147,000 people have been affected, and you only have to look around to see that people need help.”

The city of Tacloban, one of the areas that suffered the worst devastation from Typhoon Haiyan, received some relief when the Caritas network delivered 500 tarpaulins to those left without shelter after the storm.

The tarps were transported by the Australian Air Force, who took the Caritas cargo from Cebu, the main hub of relief efforts, to Tacloban, on a C-130 Hercules.

“Solidarity is important to the Philippines,” said Trixie Suarez, headmistress of the Singapore School on Cebu, one of the islands badly damaged by Typhoon Haiyan.

“Our students and teachers organized a fundraiser so that in partnership with Caritas we can help people affected by this natural disaster,” she said.

Mrs. Suarez and fifteen students along with members of Caritas Cebu, the diocesan branch of Caritas Philippines-NASSA, distributed food and other aid items Tuesday to 3,650 survivors of the deadly storm in the north of Cebu.

There is devastation everywhere and the victims are in desperate need of everything,” said Fr. Edwin Gariguez, Executive Secretary of Caritas Philippines-NASSA, after visiting destroyed villages in the province of Leyte, one of the hardest hit areas by Typhoon Haiyan.

Just a mere few weeks after a violent earthquake struck the island of Bohol in the Philippines, the country is experiencing one of the worst typhoons in its history.

Typhoon Haiyan (known locally as Yolanda) has already struck several parts of the country, including Bohol and other regions that are still recovering from the previous 20 tropical storms that have come through the country this year.

Over thirty people have crammed into a small wooden hut surrounded by mountains and rice paddies in the village of Bayog. Inside, a lively debate is raging.

“When the company put the monuments to demarcate the land of the mine, some of our land was included inside, but we don’t want our lands to be inside,” states someone in the hut.

Timuay Boy Anoy, a tribal leader of the indigenous Subanens of the Philippines, knows all too well the conflicts that come with a mine. When the Filipino Government handed over Subanen ancestral lands as a concession to a Canadian mining company, the community quickly dissolved into factions of those in favour of the mine and those opposed. Rumours, resistance, manipulation and a lack of transparency began to pull apart the social fabric of the tribe.

In August 2012, Typhoon Saola (also referred to as Gener) and torrential rains caused extensive damage in the northern Philippines, particularly in the capital Manila and its surrounding areas. Flooding, the displacement of communities and fears that floodwaters could take months to dissipate, as occurred after the passage of Typhoon Ondoy (Ketsana) in 2009, motivated the Development and Peace's partners to respond quickly.

For a week during Lent I had the great privilege of accompanying Father Edwin Gariguez through a solidarity visit of the Atlantic Provinces. Father Edu is executive director of NASSA, the social action arm of the Philippines Catholic church and one of Development and Peace’s most enduring partners.