This has been a dizzy, bewildering week. This column came out last Friday when supertyphoon ’Yolanda’, the most powerful storm worldwide this year, struck. Thankfully we had time, as we were warned beforehand, to prepare supplies to last for a couple of days at least. Then power went out, leaving most of us clueless, without TV coverage, when Yolanda made landfall.
Here in Banawa, Guadalupe where I reside, we braced ourselves at home for the strong winds through the dark night with candlelight, not kerosene lamps we used to rely on during earlier brownouts, as when Ruping struck in 1990 and we were powerless for almost a month! This time, Yolanda actually sped through.
Then in mid-afternoon the next day, the cocks surprisingly crowed when the winds had already died down. Thanks to the Visayan Electric Co.’s speedy efforts, we finally had power in Banawa to see us through the night, watching TV reports on the latest and ongoing developments, and later reading newspaper reports that the Visayas, especially in Tacloban city in Leyte, and northern Cebu, had most of its houses and buildings leveled, leaving thousands homeless and without food, dead bodies along the roads and hundreds missing.
Through the week, the death toll kept rising to more than two thousand and still counting. Communication lines and transportation facilities, badly hit and damaged, isolated towns and families.
By midweek, media had more explicit reports with images on TV and in the papers of the appallingly vast destruction across Central Visayas.
We were overwhelmed with reports on the almost immediate, incredible and generous outpouring of aid for victims in the devastated areas. Aid primarily in food supplies, not only from Philippine sources, including even cities, towns and provinces that themselves had suffered from other earlier calamities, primarily the recent 7.2-magnitude earthquake, aftershocks and floods, as well as rebel unrest.
The aid continues to pour in: food, supplies, money, physical presence to aid and console, even prayers from Pope Francis and the religious. All this generous aid from civic, media, social and community organizations local and national, as well as international, among many others. And these are all continuing. God bless them all! President Aquino declared a state of national calamity.
Meanwhile, Zoraida, downgraded to a Low Pressure Area (LPA), was expected on the same day in Davao, and signal no. 1 was raised in Southern Cebu, Bohol, Siquijor and Negros Oriental. No reports on this yet as I write this.
When the weather had quieted down last Sunday, our Cebu United Radio and TV Artists (Curta), Inc. held its monthly meeting at the Rizada residence in Labangon. Curta gives members, veteran and experienced, as well as young and new talents, an opportunity to get together to socialize, to further improve professionally from invited guests and seminar, and financial assistance in times of need, medical and death crises.
But this time it was a serious business meeting with Curta honorary chairman Rosita “Rose” Rizada laying out technical and financial plans about a forthcoming fund-raising project for our members’ financial and medical needs. The project, involving members’ performing and musical talents, is “Operitang Hilaw”, proposed to be held on February 22nd next year at the Casino Filipino at the Waterfront Hotel. Significantly, the date is two days before Curta’s late Founder Emil Rizada’s 5th death anniversary on Feb. 24, 2014.
And now, until next busy week, may God continue to bless us, one and all!