THE numbers are staggering, despite having been repeated so often, in stories of disasters around the globe, for the past eight years. At least 6,000 lives lost, another 30,000 people injured. Nine provinces in the Visayas devastated. And billions in public infrastructure, business and private property destroyed.
Can people ever tire of using superlatives in recalling Haiyan (local name Yolanda), that super cyclone that stunned the world in November 2013, and gave activists at the coincidental global climate change conference then a human face to illustrate the real toll of unbridled destruction of the planet?
Perhaps they never will. After all, this year’s commemoration of Haiyan coincided, once more, with the COP26, or the conference of parties in Glasgow. It was marked, as expected, by a lot of finger-pointing and blame-tossing; by an abundance of rhetoric and solemn promises, even from those who in the past abetted the steady, speedy march of the planet’s warming, nearer an abyss where 1 degree of temperature rise can spell death.
Long road
THE words come easy in global forums like in Glasgow this week, but the real reckoning with disaster takes many years. Stressing that disaster recovery encompasses a range of phases, the Philippine Red Cross (PRC) said last week that restoring order in a community and regaining normalcy is not that easy.
With all the accomplishments in helping rebuild communities and restore normalcy in millions of lives, PRC stressed that disaster recovery is a “marathon—not a sprint.”
That is why, according to PRC, almost a decade after Haiyan, they are still working hard and working tirelessly alongside their partners in helping communities build back stronger, healthier, and more resilient to future disasters.
“Eight years ago today, one of the most powerful storms ever recorded in our planet’s history, and the most destructive in our nation’s history, made landfall in the Philippines, devastating nine of our provinces, Palawan, Aklan, Antique, Capiz, Cebu, Iloilo, Leyte, Eastern and Western Samar,” the PRC said in recalling how Typhoon Haiyan, locally known as Supertyphoon Yolanda, took more than 6,000 Filipino lives, injuring 30,000 individuals, destroying countless homes, bridges, schools, farms and businesses in its wake.
Climate justice
THE urgent plea for climate justice was marked in the comprehensive statement issued by the Philippine delegation head, Finance Secretary Carlos G. Dominguez III, who noted before world leaders that the Philippines is sinking four times faster than the global average rate, and yet accounts for a tiny fraction of global warming and pollution. It is time, Dominguez said, for the rich countries that have progressed at the expense of the rest to put their money where their mouth is: climate financing for those unjustly impacted by sea-level rise and increasingly destructive weather disturbances.
For militant churches, Haiyan’s anniversary is a “reminder to take a scaled-up action from the government and world leaders.”
In a statement, the National Council of Churches in the Philippines (NCCP), the country’s biggest aggrupation of mainline Protestant and non-Roman Catholic churches, renewed its commitment to support disaster survivors and climate-vulnerable communities in time for the eighth anniversary of Haiyan destruction in 2013 and the 26th UN Climate Change Conference of Parties (COP26) in Glasgow, Scotland.
“Eight years after the Typhoon Yolanda landfall, we still call for justice. We will never forget the people who died from that disaster which was exacerbated by climate change and the grave negligence of both the past and present administrations,” NCCP said.
“Since 2013, Typhoon Yolanda has shown how utterly devastating the climate crisis is. Since then, we have experienced typhoons and extreme weather events with almost the same destructive impacts as that of Typhoon Yolanda—a glaring indication that we no longer have to wait for a few more years to feel the climate crisis,” said NCCP General Secretary Bishop Reuel Norman O. Marigza.
“These experiences should have pushed the government to scale up disaster mitigation, ecological protection, and climate-change adaptation. Regrettably, we haven’t seen any indication that our national government is now well prepared, as shown in the government’s inadequate responses to post-Yolanda calamities,” the bishop added. “If anything, we are in a much vulnerable state—as economic crisis and environmental destruction worsen at the backdrop of the climate emergency.”
“In recalling the destruction brought by Yolanda and in consideration of COP26, we reiterate our call and prayer for climate justice. We hope and pray that people of goodwill eschew a global economic system where profit is prioritized over people. We pray and call for a shift to clean energy instead of monopolized fossil fuels, for rehabilitated and protected forests instead of large-scale mining, lives and livelihood of the people over big businesses,” Bishop Marigza said.
Unparalleled challenge
THE PRC recalled how, before, during and after Haiyan, it led the way in delivering aid to the vast multitude that was affected. Two years shy of a decade, PRC says its Haiyan operations remain unparalleled.
“We are almost a decade after Yolanda, yet the Philippine Red Cross has not stopped helping its victims to stand up on their feet. We are recognized as one of the best Red Cross societies in the world because of our Haiyan operations. PRC has demonstrated that we could gather aid from almost all the Red Cross and Red Crescent societies worldwide and distribute them accordingly to the affected provinces,” said PRC Chairman and CEO Sen. Richard Gordon.
“Our Haiyan operations reinforce the Red Cross as the go-to organization and the preferred partner of choice since we were able to get the job done,” Gordon added.
Initially, the PRC delivered relief in the form of food, water, medical care, emergency shelter materials, and cash-as-aid projects.
Days, weeks, months and even years later, the PRC led a huge contingent of Partner National Societies to roll out its recovery operations. These included the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, the International Committee of the Red Cross, Swiss Red Cross, Finnish Red Cross, Spanish Red Cross, Singapore Red Cross, German Red Cross, Hong Kong Red Cross, Australian Red Cross, Italian Red Cross, British Red Cross, Korean Red Cross, Japan Red Cross, Taiwan Red Cross, French Red Cross, American Red Cross, Qatar Red Crescent, Netherlands Red Cross, and Norwegian Red Cross.
Through the years, the PRC helped thousands of affected families to stand up on their feet after the life-altering superstorm—helping them get back their livelihood and build safer and more disaster-resilient homes and classrooms; and ensuring access to improved health and sanitation facilities and services.
During the PRC’s Haiyan Emergency Phase, from November 8, 2013, to March 30, 2014, the premier humanitarian organization provided food items to more than 1.9 million individuals or roughly 390,399 families.
Nonfood items such as plastic mats, blankets, mosquito nets, water containers, tarpaulins and kitchen sets were also given to more than 1.2 million individuals or 258,972 families.
The PRC supported 90,779 families (equivalent to 453,895 individuals) with cash assistance of P281 million from December 2013 to March 2014.
Eight years in the running, the PRC has already built 80,207 shelters for families affected in Leyte including Ormoc City; in Western and Eastern Samar, Cebu, Capiz, Aklan, Antique, Iloilo and Palawan. At least 62,676 households received livelihood assistance through cash grants and livelihood training.
Of the houses built through the Red Cross, Chairman Gordon is very proud of the fact that “PRC was the only organization to be able to build houses which were accounted for, donors can see where their houses are, who lives in there. We can produce a list.” Cash livelihood assistance was also granted to 62,676 households, while livelihood training was provided to 15,985 individuals.
The PRC also provided Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) facilities to 116 schools. It constructed 1,168 community-based WASH facilities as well; repaired 94 health facilities and conducted health-related promotional awareness campaigns for 64,650 people.
The Red Cross Haiyan operations also reconstructed 536 classrooms and distributed 8,375 school kits.
The PRC also established the PRC Vocational Training Center in Leyte, the PRC Regional Logistic and Disaster Management Training Center in Passi City, and a blood facility in Bogo City.
Myrna Cinco, one of those affected by the typhoon, said, in Filipino, “Were it not for Red Cross, we wouldn’t have a house to live in.”
“Recovery has no shortcuts, this is why we will continue to work hand in hand with our partners for a better future, ” said Gordon.
Before the storm
ACTUALLY, the work of humanitarian groups like PRC began days before Haiyan hit land. Early on November 2, as soon as it was known that the tropical storm was making its way to Philippine shores from Micronesia, Gordon mobilized the Philippine Red Cross chapters to plan, prepare and predict for the catastrophe that lay ahead. At the Red Cross Operations Center, they texted all stakeholders to provide relief as the country braced itself for the calamity.
Over the next few days, the storm rapidly intensified into a typhoon, finally making landfall with sustained winds of up to 315 kph, with howling gusts and forceful sheets of rain wreaking devastation everywhere. A typical survivor’s ordeal was told by a young radio employee in Tacloban, who clung, suspended, for four hours to an overhead steel truss, the only one that remained after Haiyan destroyed their radio station. “For four hours, it felt like a thousand needles piercing my skin, and then I realized this was sand” being hurled with force by the storm surge, along with the sheets of rain and ocean spray, said the young writer, who had to deal with the trauma for years. Still, she felt lucky, because two of her coworkers died.
When it passed, more than 18 million individuals were affected, including 4 million displaced, 30,000 left injured, and 6,300 who died. Up to now, more than 1,500 people are still counted among the missing. P1.1 billion worth of homes were destroyed and sources of livelihood were decimated, per PRC data.
The Philippine Red Cross led a humanitarian caravan of rescue equipment, ambulances, payloaders, water tankers and transport vehicles carrying relief goods into the affected areas on November 11, 2013. The death and destruction was so horrific that Gordon recalled telling the Partner Societies, “I brought you hear to save lives. I am sorry that now you have to pick up bodies.”
The most immediate task then, Red Cross recalled, was to rescue the living, administer first aid, and provide food, shelter, clothing, hygiene facilities, and psychosocial support. Hot meals, tents and emergency shelter repair kits, portalets and water, kitchen sets, sleeping sets and clothes were distributed with haste, while Red Cross personnel went through the provinces providing mental health programs for the forlorn and shocked people, and helping families scattered during the storm to reunite.
Red Cross staff and volunteers in payloaders and firetrucks moved through the areas carefully plucking bodies of the dead from the debris, placing them in body bags which went into refrigerated vans, and started the identification process.
They then commenced clearing roads and throughways of all signs of devastation.
Among others, the German Red Cross flew in relief items through Mactan Airport, the IFRC provided 230,000 families with household items, the Chinese Red Cross helped the Philippine Red Cross build 166 classrooms in Leyte, and the Indonesian Red Cross provided a helicopter to airlift a patient from Tacloban to a Cebu health facility.
Dozens of international humanitarian missions from around the world came to the Philippines days after Haiyan, conducting medical procedures, stress debriefing, giving relief and helping provide vital amenities like clean water and hygienic washrooms.
The UN launched an emergency fundraising for Haiyan victims, drawing in millions of dollars of vital aid in the first few days after the monster cyclone.
Looking back on the typhoon that the world will forever associate with the worst impacts of climate change, one thing brings hope to those who faced it up close: the strength, faith and kindness of Filipinos, and of the strangers who came to their aid from other parts of the country.
PRC’s Gordon puts it thus: “The resilience of the Filipino is unprecedented. Despite the death and devastation, we found deliverance. Rehabilitation and repair with the help of our movement partners has been successful. Disaster is not insurmountable with passion and commitment, both of which were provided by the Red Cross. We continue to support these communities even eight years after Yolanda hit these bucolic towns and cities. With focus, fast action, flexibility, friendliness, and being forward-looking, the Philippine Red Cross is poised to serve as it is always first, always ready, and always there.”
Images courtesy of AP/Malacanang Photo Bureau, Ryan Lim, AP/David Guttenfelder and AP/Wally Santana