Police officer from Tacloban survives to tell his tale

A week later after the Supertyphoon Yolanda hit the city of Tacloban, homeless residents scamper for whatever things they could rescue. They are asking the government for food and shelter. INQUIRER FILE PHOTO

MANILA, Philippines—Everyone in Tacloban has his unheard story of survival and trauma. For PO2 Joel de Paz, it was a story of faith.

“Si Jesus na lang bahala sa akin (I entrust my fate to Jesus [Christ]),” de Paz told himself as the waters brought by the wild storm surge quickly engulfed his family’s humble abode on Paseo de Legazpi in Tacloban.

A Provincial Public Safety Company (PPSC) mobile group policeman, De Paz said he was fortunate that his five children stayed in Dagami, a nearby Leyte province, where waters did not reach 14 feet to 16 feet unlike in their home, which was only 11 kilometers away from Tacloban’s coastal airport.

“I hung to the wires and cables of street posts to survive. Afterwards, I climbed into our roof where I waited thirty minutes for the water to subside,” he said on Wednesday, seemingly aloof from the reporters around him.

“As I got down from our roof, I saw how the waters wiped our city. Everywhere I look, I see bodies and damaged houses. I saw dead children, maybe aged nine to 10. It pinched my heart because they were the same age as my children,” he recounted.

After that fateful Friday morning, he walked to Dagami to look for his children, which he estimated was 34 kilometers from Paseo de Legazpi.

On the first days of the supertyphoon “Yolanda” (international name: Haiyan) aftermath, any means of transportation was not possible. All survivors traveled by foot as roads got blocked by fallen trees and damaged infrastructures.

“At first I walked barefoot. But along the road, I saw slippers scattered all over. I just got myself one,” said the 40-year-old policeman.

Just strong winds

Although a preemptive evacuation was enforced by the Tacloban government, some of the residents opted to stay in their homes since they never had a hunch that one of the most powerful typhoons in history would cause massive damage and numerous deaths.

“All of us thought Yolanda will only bring strong winds. We never anticipated that storm surges will hit us,” De Paz said.

De Paz described: “Nawala ‘yung tubig sa dagat. Pagbalik biglang binuhos sa Tacloban (The water in the sea disappeared. When it came back, everything was poured into Tacloban),” as he kept on claiming that Yolanda was the strongest typhoon “in the world.”

Recovery

Last Saturday, De Paz and his two boys were few of the thousands who patiently waited in Tacloban airport.  The De Paz’s family waited for three days.

But De Paz, whose wife is an overseas worker, said three young girls were left in Tacloban with some of their relatives.

As the C-130 plane that he and his kids boarded in Tacloban landed in Manila, they went straight to seek shelter from his relatives in Quezon City.

Since he cannot contact his immediate supervisor in Tacloban, he then came before the Philippine National Police (PNP) office to give his details, testifying that he was alive.

Missing police

According to PNP spokesperson Senior Superintendent Reuben Theodore Sindac, out of 6,295 policemen assigned with Eastern Visayas regional police office, 109 are still missing.

Among the 109 missing, 32 are police officers from Tacloban.

“In fact we are organizing a separate relief effort for our fellow policemen,” he added.

In the latest release of the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council, around 3,725 died in Samar and Leyte alone out of the 4,011 death toll.

RELATED STORIES:

‘Yolanda’ death toll now over 4,000

Seahawks wide receiver Baldwin shows support for Yolanda survivors

PH counts the cost of supertyphoon ‘Yolanda’