Yolanda Survivor Shares Recovery Story

Yolanda survivor Merlinda Inocencio of Estancia, Iloilo shared the following story of how her family is rebuilding their fishing livelihood, during the 22nd annual membership meeting of the Center for Community Transformation Group of Ministries in March 2014. To read this story in English, please click HERE. 

Magandang gabi po sa lahat! Nagpapasalamat ako sa Panginoon sa pagkakataon na maipaalam sa marami ang kanyang kabutihan sa akin at sa aking pamilya.  Ako po ay si Merlinda Inocencio ng Estancia, Iloilo. Ako at ang aking asawa ay may apat na anak at anim na apo.  Ang pamilya ko po ay kabilang sa mga sinasabing fisher folk. Ang aming bayan na Estancia ay binansagang ‘Alaska of the Philippines’ dahil sa dagat sa paligid namin nanggagaling ang maraming alimasag na mabibili dito sa Maynila.

Ako po ay isang community partner ng CCT.  Walong taon na po akong nakakatanggap ng mga microfinance loan mula sa CCT Credit Cooperative. Sa tulong po ng mga  loan na ito, ako po ay nakapagpundar ng dalawang pumpboat na ginagamit sa pangingisda; ang nahuhuling isda ay binebenta ko sa fish port ng Estancia. Sa pagpapala ng Panginoon nakapagtapos ng college ang lahat ng anak ko. Ang panganay commerce ang natapos, ang sumunod ay nursing ang natapos, at ang dalawa ay IT. 

Ang mga bangka namin ay nakapagbigay rin ng trabaho sa sampung ulo ng pamilya bilang piloto, makinista, at pahinante. Ang mga tatay na ito ay sumusuporta sa 25 na mga bata.

Ang Estancia ang isa sa mga bayan na malubhang tinamaan ng Yolanda.  Naranasan po namin ang magkaroon ng walong talampakan na tubig sa loob ng bahay. Kinailangang tumalon kami mula sa aming terrace para makaligtas. Salamat sa Panginoon na walang nalunod sa amin, at ang buong pamilya ay buhay.

Maraming salamat sa mga ginamit niya upang mabigyan kami at mga kapitbahay ng relief pagkatapos ng Yolanda.  Napuntahan din kami ng mga doctor at nabigyan ng kailangang mga gamot.    

Ang na-apektohan ng husto ay ang aming kabuhayan at isa sa aming trabahador.  Hindi na namin nakita muli  ang dalawang pump boat namin, at isa rin sa mga nagtatrabaho para sa amin ang hindi pa makita hanggang ngayon.

 Dahil sa wala kaming alam na ibang pagkakakitaan kundi ang pangigisda, malaking bagay ang muli akong napahiram ng CCT para makapagsimula muli sa pagnenegosyo.  Ako ay binigyan ng P70,000 na loan at ito ay ginamit ko na ipambili ng panibagong pump boat, motor, at mga net.  Muli na po kaming nakakapangisda at muli na rin po ako nakakapagtinda sa fish port.  Malakas po ang aking pag-asa na muli pong babangon ang aming kabuhayan sa at pagpapala na rin ng ating Panginoon.

Ang pagpapalang ito ay ipinapaabot ko rin po sa mga anak ng aming trabahador na nawala sa Yolanda. May naiwan po siyang dalawang anak na babae, isang grade 7 at isang grade 4.  Nakatira po sila ngayon sa Bantayan Island sa Cebu.  Pinapadalhan ko po ang mga bata ng tulong para makapagpatuloy sila ng pag-aaral.  

Pagkatapos po ng Yolanda, nagsimula pong magkaroon ng Sunday worship services sa CCT office sa lugar namin.  Ako po ay regular na dumadalo dito.  Ginamit ng Panginoon ang bagyong Yolanda para ako ay mapaalalahanan ng kahalagahan ng ating relasyon sa kanya.  Nakita ko sa bagyong ito na wala tayong magagawa liban sa kanya, na hawak niya ang ating buhay at ang lahat ng pangyayari sa mundo ay na sa kanyang pamamahala. 

Maraming salamat po at pagpalain nawa tayo ng Panginoon!

Estancia Fisherwoman: Back In Business

Hope shines anew in Margielyn Gallardo's eyes. 

Margielyn with some freshly-steamed crabs

Crabs ready for steaming.

Margielyn's two new boats.

A dream house  damaged by Yolanda.

Seven years ago, Margielyn Gallardo and her husband began building their dream house. It was a concrete one-story building that sat on the western tip of Loguingot Island, right on the shore of this island barangay of Estancia, Iloilo. It had a tiled floor, a small terrace, and two bedrooms -- very different from the houses they had both grown up in.  From here Margielyn could watch the sunset, or look out over the water as her family's fishing boats came in with fresh catches of crab and fish.

Over the past 23 years, as their brood of children grew to seven, the Gallardos also built up their fishing livelihood until they had a fleet of 11 boats, each of which provided jobs for two or three nephews or neighbors. Part of the catch was brought to a  processing company where the crab meat was picked out of the shells, pasteurized, and exported.  

Then on November 8, 2013, Supertyphoon Yolanda slammed into Estancia, causing a storm surge and hurling a huge boat against the house.

The next day Margielyn found that she had no house. No boats.  Not even any fishing equipment. No nets.  No crab cages. "Wala kaming naisalba,' she states simply.

Margielyn is one of 36 members of the CCT Savings and Credit Cooperative who live and work on Loguingot Island.  Most of them are fisher folk. Others earn a living ferrying passengers across the water from the mainland.

 The island is home to about 300 families all of whom suffered  from Yolanda's pummeling.

Today Margielyn and her family have gone back to living in a hut with bamboo walls and a grass roof.  She may not be allowed to rebuild over what's left of her dream house. But still, things are looking good for Margielyn.  She recently received a loan of P70,000 from CCT and from the Bread from Heaven Christian Fellowship in Las Pinas City.  The church has a special interest in helping Estancia and nearby communities  rebuild their homes and livelihoods.

With this loan, Margielyn bought two motorized fishing boats and several dozen new crab cages. She is back in business, catching crabs and steaming them whole. (The crabs are then brought to the mainland and soon appear in restaurants  as crabmeat omelette or  sizzling crabmeat.)

And she can smile with hope again. 

Two months after Yolanda hit Loguingot Island, half of  the hull of a boat hurled by the super typhoon against the Gallardo house still lies on the shore.  Also shown is what's left of  Margielyn's kitchen.

Yolanda Aid Worker Story 2: Unexpected Rescue

Dr. Demy (standing) and Dr. Pan Callanta in Tacloban, Leyte.

By Pastor Ruel Castino as told to Myra Gaculais del Rosario

It was nearly sunset.  Three doctors and two nurses in the  medical mission team I was part of  were rushing to attend to a few more patients before Yolanda-devastated Tacloban would  be plunged again into darkness. 

They were treating survivors at the Rizal Central School where several families had taken shelter during the storm. Earlier, non-medical members of the group, myself included, had shared the Gospel and given out Bibles in the classrooms. 

A little girl, about five years old, had been hanging around the makeshift clinic as the team did their work. To pay her a little attention I taught her an action song which she acted out with gusto. 

“So where are you and your family staying?” I asked her afterward.

She pointed to another building and casually said her mother was not well. 

I decided to go see if our doctors could offer the woman some assistance.  It turns out girl's mother had been in a small accident at the crowded evacuation center and was suffering from burns on her back.   But lying next to her was a child– not one of hers --  gasping for breath. This boy, about six years old, was more in need of immediate medical attention than the woman.    

In other circumstances I’m sure the boy’s father would have brought him to a doctor.  Or he would have at least gone to a drugstore for a few tablets that would stop the asthma attack.  But this was just 13 days after the super storm that had made life in Tacloban come to a standstill.  People had lost their homes, hospitals were ruined, transportation was next to zero, and the stench of dead bodies still under the rubble filled the air.  Perhaps the father had given up hope and was waiting for the inevitable to happen. 

But I knew there still was hope for this child.  I alerted Dr. John Tabije who said he  indeed needed to be brought to a hospital.  We were lent one of the few vehicles available, an army truck brought to Tacloban by Japanese aid workers. The first hospital we brought the child to was closing just as we arrived.  They were open only during the day.   Thank God the child was admitted to the second hospital we brought him too.

When we visited the boy before leaving for another Yolanda-battered area he was breathing much better and his father had lost the look of hopelessness on his face the day before.  (The woman with burns on her back also sought medical attention she’d been trying to put off.)

And that little girl I taught an action song to?  Perhaps she will never know the important role she played in saving the life of another little child at the evacuation center that day.  

Pastor Ruel Castino (holding water bottle) with a relief delivery team
in Leyte. 

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The Center for Community Transformation Group of Ministries is committed to long-term rehabilitation work in areas affected by Typhoon Yolanda.  

Should you want to donate to Yolanda survivors, the following are CCT’s bank details:

               Bank :  Metropolitan Bank and Trust Company – Kamagong-Sampaloc, Makati Branch
               Bank Account Name :  Center for Community Transformation
               Peso Account Number :  501-3-501-90126-2
               US Dollar Account Number :  501-2-501-20008-0
               Swift Code :  MBTCPHMM

In the Philippines, please get in touch with Ms. Penny Lim at 0933-2618809 for queries or more information. 

If you are US-based, please visit philippines.causevox.com to make a donation. 

Yolanda Aid Worker Story

Unforgettable Experience:  Leading a Yolanda Survivor to Christ

By Jacob Macarilay as told to Myra Gaculais del Rosario

Jacob Macarilay cleans wounds
sustained by Yolanda survivor while
being swept out to sea. 

Anastacio, Yolanda survivor,
 tells aid workers his story. 

From the plane, the scene below seemed to me like someone had gotten tired of playing with his toys and, in a temper tantrum, had toppled them all with a quick sweep of the hand.  But this was not a playroom floor strewn with toys.  This was Tacloban City 12 days after it had been hit by Super Typhoon.  Trees and utility posts were lying on their sides, buildings of all sizes were roofless, cars were piled up and surrounded by debris. 

I was with a medical team sent to Tacloban by the Center for Community Transformation Group of Ministries (where I work as a school nurse) and the Victory Christian Fellowship. This was my first visit to Tacloban.  I wondered, “How would I have felt if I were coming home to a city as devastated as this?”

As soon as we stepped off the plane the depression all around was almost something we could touch. Then Pastor Ed Gomez and his wife Geraldine who were to be our guides through the city rushed up to greet us.  They had lost almost all their material possessions in the storm but but they welcomed us with the sunniest of smiles. I was supposed to be bringing them  encouragement, but here they were encouraging me.  Their joy was contagious.     

We unloaded our bags and medical supplies at the Ritz Tower de Leyte, an event venue and restaurant also heavily damaged by the typhoon then we set off  to meet  the vice mayor and register as aid volunteers.

The vice mayor, we found out, was a pastor! A survivor too, his home and car were damaged. He had to walk to and from the city hall everyday.  If he seemed exhausted it was understandable -- he was dealing with a situation far worse than anyone’s worst nightmares. Still, he worked with quiet determination. 

He requested our group of three doctors, two nurses and one non-medical staff to fill the gap between the local government's efforts  and ‘big players’ bringing in aid such as international organizations, the Department of Health, and the Philippine Red Cross. 

Back at the Ritz, we met two volunteers looking for a group they could team up with. Steven introduced himself as a registered pharmacist.  Jason, although just about my age – 21 – said he’d been doing volunteer work for quite some time and had actually crossed paths with Steven at relief operations thrice before.  We knew God had sent them our way. Steven's experience with reading scribbled prescriptions and Jason's assistance with dispensing medicine helped us serve a lot more patients than we could have without their help. 

We treated more than 500 patients in two days in Leyte. One of them was Kuya Anastacio.

He told me his survival story while I cleaned wounds on his legs. 

Like other men in his seaside community, he’d sent his family to an evacuation center and stayed home to keep an eye on their belongings.  The storm surge flattened  houses in the entire neighborhood and swept him and many others out to sea.  Clinging to someone's house post as dead neighbors floated around him he earnestly prayed that God would spare him. Several hours later  a rescue team fished him out of the water alive.

As a nurse I am trained never to give in to my emotions when treating a patient. But I was crying just as hard as Kuya Anastacio as I told him, “God heard your plea.  God has a purpose for your life.  He gave you a second chance.”   He turned his life over to Jesus that morning at the evacuation center.

This is my first job, so this Tacloban trip is something I will never forget.  What makes it most unforgettable was the opportunity to lead Kuya Anastacio to Christ. 

Among CCT Community Partners: Zero Lives Lost

Although more than 6,500 CCT-assisted families were affected by Typhoon Yolanda, zero deaths were reported by staff in the provinces of Capiz, Iloilo, Leyte, Palawan and Mindoro. 

Some 6,585 families in the path of the storm suffered total or partial damage to their homes while among the 65 staff working in the affected towns and cities, 14 suffered totally damaged homes. 

Two pastors arrived in Samar on November 15 where they were to meet up with Leyte-based Pastor Ed Gomez and would then proceed to Tacloban  to locate community partners about whom CCT still has no news.  

A team of three doctors and a nurse is scheduled to leave on Wednesday, November 21, for Tacloban.  

CCT is accepting donations for the survivors. Most-needed supplies are food, water, and medicine.  Ruth Callanta, CCT president, also noted the practicality of providing solar-powered lamps which can also be used as cell phone chargers.   

For inquiries in the Philippines, please get in touch with Ms. Penny Lim at 0933-2618809. 

Should you want to make a cash donation, the following are CCT’s bank details:

               

Bank :  Metropolitan Bank and Trust Company – Kamagong-Sampaloc, Makati Branch

Bank Account Name :  Center for Community Transformation 

Peso Account Number :  501-3-501-90126-2

US Dollar Account Number :  501-2-501-20008-0

Swift Code :  MBTCPHMM

To make tax-deductible donations from the US, please visit philippines.causevox.com