Filipino of the Year 2011: The Volunteers

EVERYDAY PEOPLE. Filipinos from all walks of life come together to help victims of natural disasters.

(Editor’s Note: Now on its 21st successive year, the Inquirer’s Filipino of the Year honors a living Filipino who made the most positive impact in the past year as voted upon by the editors and assistant editors.  Aside from the one most voted upon, the other nominees in the order of their number of votes were Leila de Lima [some editors have been voting for her the past three years], the Indie Filmmaker, Dragonboat Team, President Aquino [last year’s winner], Azkals, Robin Lim, Netizen, Beauty Queens and Mommy “D.”)

Were an artist to piece together a collage of the names and faces of the rescuers, relief workers, volunteers and donors who stood and delivered during and in the aftermath of Tropical Storm “Sendong” and other calamities in 2011, the resulting artwork would look, without doubt, lit from within.

A good heart beating at its core would cause the collage to glow.

There is no master list of the volunteers and donors, none tracking their names, their hours, their deeds or their gifts (in the future, there should be an effort at keeping one). But they were there—when and where they were needed.

It was in the last quarter of 2011 that the most destructive typhoons hit the country. “Pedring” and “Quiel” blew into Luzon in September and October and left 101 dead. The first affected 3.03 million people in 35 provinces and the latter, 1.11 million people in 18 provinces.

Then one night in December, Sendong unleashed an unprecedented amount of rain on places in Visayas and Mindanao so unfamiliar with such fury that, instead of keeping watch, the villagers went to sleep as the rivers were swelling. The cities of Dumaguete, Cagayan de Oro and Iligan were the hardest hit.

At last count, 1,268 people were dead, 6,071 were injured and 52,435 houses were ruined, with almost 15,000 totally destroyed. The damage to infrastructure and agriculture was assessed at P1.71 billion.

Everyday people

The timing could not have been worse for a nation that was expecting Christmas in two weeks.  Caught in the throes of preparation for the holidays, people could not spare the time to help with calamity relief work.

But not everyone, thank heavens.  There were those who responded to the call for aid.

Everyday people took time off from their lives and loved ones to search for survivors, comfort the grieving, treat the wounded, bury the dead, pack relief goods, feed and shelter evacuees, tutor kids, haul away muck, gut and rebuild houses, fill in expected and unexpected roles in response to the crisis at hand.

Facebook denizens started pages for detailing what the storm victims needed, where to drop them off, where to volunteer manpower, where to deposit funds and other details that could help keep the crisis at bay. “We can do this!” urged the Facebook entries.

Amateur photographers posted grim photos on the Internet and worried the world to weeping because the lifeless bodies were mostly of children.

The emotional reaction to those images rippled out to move folks abroad to do the next best thing to “reaching out and being there”—they wrote checks.

According to reports, the Philippines received P1.12 billion from other countries, separate and apart from over P322 million that the United Nations had raised from its member nations.

College students postponed their trips home for the holidays to help pack goods at instant relief centers on campuses. Some even made a detour to Cagayan de Oro or Iligan to help distribute the same to Sendong survivors.

The University of the Philippines (UP) had a system-wide relief operation manned by faculty, staff, students and other volunteers. Although UP Mindanao was at the forefront, volunteers repacked hygiene kits over at Diliman in three shifts, from 6 a.m. to midnight.

Generous guard

A guard on the Loyola Heights campus of Ateneo de Manila University (ADMU) donated the Christmas pack he had received from his employers containing two tins of canned goods, instant noodles and some rice, even before the university could officially launch its relief drive.

ADMU synched its emergency operations with other Jesuit campuses, in particular Xavier University, which served as an evacuation center for Cagayan de Oro residents left homeless by the storm.

Xavier offered  5 hectares of its property to serve as a relocation site for the homeless survivors. Tents were put up at the relocation site in Barangay Lumbia to temporarily shelter displaced families. In time, according to the university spokesperson, materials for constructing homes would be provided.

Hurting, homeless

Dynamism animated most of the relief and evacuation centers. At Mindanao State University-Iligan Institute of Technology, students organized thousands of evacuees into clusters. A leader was appointed for each cluster to maintain order, with the evacuees expected to look after their respective groups.

The clusters made mealtimes easier without having to ask the evacuees to form lines three times a day.  Sometimes, lining up for food can be demeaning, especially when you are hurting and homeless.

Many companies decided to forego their office Christmas celebrations and instead deposited their party funds into the Sendong accounts set up by the banks.

Some even gave their employees leave for volunteer work, in addition to starting a pot for cash donations. Various businesses gave goods, from coffins to tents to underwear.  Water companies delivered their product.

The Inquirer initiated a relief drive and distributed donations it received in kind on Christmas Eve through the Philippine Red Cross.

Other companies offered services.  Airlines picked up and dropped off donations. Doctors and nurses volunteered medical services. Psychologists held debriefing sessions for both victims and volunteers.

Employees of the companies under San Miguel Corp. (SMC) organized soup kitchens in over 21 evacuation centers, serving thousands of families in the cities in crisis. SMC also donated bottles of purified water and food packs to affected families.

‘Drop in the bucket’

All that would have been good enough, but SMC topped its donations with a P500-million check for the construction of houses for Sendong victims, in cooperation with Gawad Kalinga.

Now people will say that amount is a drop in the bucket for a conglomerate as big as SMC.  That is true, but it is also a drop in other companies’ buckets, yet none of them other than SMC gave in such proportion.

Although not quite as large, a Filipino-Chinese businessman, who wished to remain anonymous, offered to bankroll the building of initially 300 houses in Calaanan for Sendong victims in CDO and eventually 700 more.

An Inquirer columnist teamed up with the Rural Missionaries of the Philippines-Northern Mindanao Region for the “Yakapin: Batang Hilagang Mindanao (YBHM)” because she believed stuffed toys were comfort givers in times of trauma and could help heal the “children who have lost almost everything.”  From 12 drop-off centers, YBHM collected thousands of teddy bears and other plush animals.

Good begets good

As Cathy Babao was wrapping up the donations, a friend forwarded to her a YouTube video that showed Sendong images and a 7-year old American girl named Bronte pleading for 3,000 stuffed toys for the children affected by flash floods in the Philippines. “They have to be clean, lovable, plush and, most of all, they need to be there before Valentine’s Day,” appealed Bronte. Good, as they say, begets good.

The damage to schools wrought by Sendong totaled P114.93 million in 60 schools. It affected close to 37,000 students and almost 2,000 teachers and school officials in the razed towns of Mindanao.

Teachers—some of whom lost loved ones to the floods, many of whom lost homes—set aside  personal grief to cook at evacuation centers and to get the students back into the classrooms. Bayug Elementary School, of which only the flooring was spared by Sendong, had a 60-percent attendance on the first day of class after the calamity, thanks to the efforts of its principal and teachers who conducted classes at another site.

Regular guys turned titans

For the 1.17 million people affected by Sendong, these men, women and entities made up the rainbow that broke through after the storm and made a difference.

But even as the waters were raging during Sendong, there were people who, in the words of psychologist Philip Zimbardo, “moved from passive observers to take heroic action.”

Media photos and videos showed ordinary men who seemed to grow instant nerves of steel, regular guys who all of a sudden looked like titans, as they saved people from the perilous currents onto safety.

That the first contact with fellow human beings for these survivors was compassionate is an enormous blessing and a hopeful beginning.

Forever grateful

“We’ll be forever grateful,” said a barangay chair in Iligan, who was roused from sleep and saved with his family by four men just minutes before their home submerged and logs rammed through it.

“Pray to God but row to the shore,” goes the famous adage. This year’s Filipinos of the Year did more than that.  They helped others to the shore.  They gave time, strength, kindness, goods and money. Best of all, they gave of themselves.

The recent losses in this country has suffered will have far-reaching effects on the nation. Because the scope of destruction is so vast, rehabilitation will take a long time. This means volunteer activity will also have to continue.

It is time for the rest of us to roll up our sleeves and pick up where the first responders left off.  That will be the best tribute we can pay these Filipinos of the Year. With a report from Inquirer Research

First posted 12:38 am | Sunday, February 5th, 2012