Hope amid devastation: Quietly, Cebuanos do their share

Images coming out of devastated areas, isolated on Friday by the breakdown of communication facilities, show the extent of the devastation caused by Supertyphoon “Yolanda.” Visayans, including these girls in Daanbantayan town in northern Cebu province, are still in a daze in the aftermath of the supertyphoon. CDN FILE PHOTO

CEBU CITY, Philippines—Just two hours after Supertyphoon “Yolanda” left, this doctor, her husband and their three children jumped into the family car. Their house, sitting between two hills that protected it against the strongest typhoon in recorded history, had survived. They wanted to see how the rest of the city had fared.

“Our main concern was to see if people needed help and if there was anything we could do to help them,” said the doctor, who shall remain unnamed.

“Thank God it wasn’t as we expected,” she said as she surveyed the debris. But she knew that they were the lucky ones.

Her fears were confirmed by a report blasting out of a transistor radio. A radio reporter giving choppy updates from the northernmost tip of Cebu island spoke of an evacuation center that was still being battered by jet-like winds.

Torn apart

The evacuation center, where people living on the coast had been brought to safety, was slowly being taken apart by the wind. It looked as though the roof was being ripped from the walls with a crow bar, said the by now hysterical reporter before his transmission was cut off.

The doctor said she and her family decided they had to do something right away.

Here in this city that was spared by the monster typhoon, ordinary people stood up and decided to help in their own “little way.” Away from the spotlight.

For the doctor, her family and close friends, the “little way” meant helping hundreds of families at Daanbantayan, a municipality in the northern tip of Cebu whose coastline was completely devastated, leaving its residents homeless, hungry and largely unnoticed. They packed relief goods that not only provided these families with a few days’ worth of food and supplies, it also gave them hope that help was on the way.

Convoy to Daanbantayan

“The important thing is the first few days,” said the doctor. She and her friends rounded up whatever goods they had and packed them into relief bundles before driving in a convoy to Daanbantayan, even as news reports warned that the road to the north was not passable.

“We just believed it was,” said the 47-year-old general practitioner. “We packed a lot of things. Food, water, even matches. The people in the coastal areas, they were so devastated by the storm that they had no means to cook rice even if they were provided with it.”

While the doctor and her friends were bringing hope to survivors, several other residents of this city began looking for ways to help. In a small garage in neighboring Mandaue City, a group of twentysomethings were bundling goods into relief packages. Another group was selling t-shirts, with the proceeds going to help both earthquake and storm survivors.

Everywhere it was the same. There were no cameras. You had to beg for an interview. Those who agreed refused to be named. “No pictures, please,” they’d say, almost apologetically.

They are not famous or recognizable names, nor are they affiliated with any group—Gilda Ledesma Rollan, Maria Therese Herrero, Johnrey Herrero, Rea Fontanoza, Andrie Fontanoza, Rosabelle Aldamita, Lorraine Deiparine, Noelyn Taghoy, Alfred Go. There were many others.

“We wanted to help our fellow Cebuanos,” said a 30-year-old salesman who barely escaped Yolanda’s wrath. His house lies within four blocks of the beach. “We were worried at first but we came out fine,” he said.

Obligation to help

The salesman, his wife and friends from high school got together and pooled rice, water, medicines and other basic needs into relief bags to be distributed in northern Cebu.

“I felt it was an obligation to help our countrymen,” said a businessman, who used his car rental shop to help deliver goods.

“We just want to help,” said the doctor, who would go on impromptu medical missions. She’d wake up, bring her three daughters with her and search for poor communities where she would give free consultations.

Her doctor-friend, who is even more of a bleeding heart, she said, would do the same. “And she is a cardiologist,” she said, noting that cardiologists are some of the most expensive doctors around.

“Helping is a lot more fulfilling if no one knows about it,” said the doctor. As they drove for three hours through unlit roads littered with debris, they saw other convoys in unmarked vehicles too. “They just want to help.”

Wrenching sight

Along the way, they passed people lining the streets asking for food. It was a wrenching sight but they could not afford to stop.

“We wanted to give them something but we felt that the people in the northernmost tip of the island needed more help,” the doctor said. Even then, they still found a way to give. They had purchased fastfood fare for the relief team. In the end, even that went to those knocking on their car windows. Old couples. Children. Pregnant women.

When they finally reached Daanbantayan, the sight shocked the doctor and her friends. More than the devastation, it was the people’s refusal to bow to desperation that hit the relief team.

“We expected to get overwhelmed. But the people were so orderly,” said the doctor.

No structure was left standing by the typhoon. Houses were ripped from their foundations. Everything collapsed. A school had been completely leveled. The only thing standing was the flagpole with the flag still attached to it. The doctor’s 15-year-old daughter took a shot of the flag.

Reminder for Cebu

“She told me, ‘Ma, look, it’s a symbol. Even in the worst calamity, the Filipino will rise,’” said the doctor.

The coastal town was a reminder of how Cebu City was spared. A slight bump of atmospheric pressure could have easily swept Yolanda here. And it would not have been the first time. Almost two decades ago, Typhoon Ruping plunged the city into two months of darkness and drought.

For the doctor, Yolanda wasn’t the first time the family cheated death. Less than a month earlier, she said was hurrying back to her house at about 8 a.m. to pick up her eldest daughter—who, as a 6-year-old child, suffered a rare form of cancer called hystiocytosis X, also known as Langerhans cell hystiocytosis, which involves the clonal proliferation of abnormal cells from the bone marrow—to take her to her violin lesson.

“I was running late,” said the doctor. And then the 7.2-magnitude earthquake that leveled Bohol City struck, shaking Cebu with tremors strong enough to bring down the bell tower of the historic Sto. Niño Church. The music class was canceled.

A few days later, while driving around, the doctor happened to see a familiar building. It had several broken-off chunks of concrete that had fallen into the building’s passageways and stairways. The daughter’s music class was on the fourth floor of that building. For the doctor, it was a sign.

Cruel reminder

A week after Yolanda, aftershocks still rock this city. It’s almost like a cruel, but gentle, reminder of how Cebu City was spared, and of how its residents need to reach out to those who weren’t.

And so the residents here continue packing bags of hope and distributing them to survivors. There are no stories about these residents. No photos of them going viral on social media. But they have this: people, wet and hungry, who crawl out of their devastation with thankful smiles, offering fruits from their ruined backyards as a gesture of thanks.

“When these people who have lost everything still have something to give just to show their gratitude, you know you have done something good. God knows you have done something good,” said the doctor.

“It doesn’t matter if no one else knows,” she said.—With a report from Edra Benedicto