Exodus to Manila continues

MANILA, Philippines - Survivors of Super Typhoon Yolanda, mostly children and sick elderly, continued to flock to Manila yesterday to escape hunger in disaster-stricken areas in Leyte.

Amid suggestions that the government discourage the exodus from the province, Presidential Communications Development and Strategic Planning Office Secretary Ricky Carandang said there is nothing they could do to stop distraught and traumatized typhoon survivors from leaving for Metro Manila and other cities.

Renald Castillo and his 70-year-old grandmother were among the passengers of a US Air Force C-130 plane that arrived at the Villamor Airbase in Pasay City at 4 a.m.

Castillo, a call center agent, traveled by land from Manila to pick up his sick grandmother in Dulag, Leyte over the weekend.

“My grandmother is sick. She is diabetic so we want to spare her from further suffering,” he said.

He said only two family members were allowed on the plane, and he was lucky that he was allowed to accompany his grandmother.

Zenaida Aves, on the other hand, arrived in Pasay City with her child and 66-year-old mother. She said their house in Tacloban City was “taken away by the sea” at the height of Yolanda.

“We survived by taking shelter at a nearby school building,” she said.

She said they received relief goods from the government only yesterday, or 10 days after Yolanda devastated Tacloban City on Nov. 8.

Roger Tabag, a tricycle driver from Ormoc City, and his son were among the survivors of the monster typhoon.

He said he would leave his son with his wife in Cainta, Rizal and would return to Ormoc to rebuild their home.

The survivors were processed by social workers, while the sick were given medicine by volunteer doctors upon their arrival at Villamor Airbase.

The Department of Social Welfare and Development said more than 3,000 evacuees have arrived from Tacloban.

The arriving evacuees were given clothes, haircuts and free calls to their relatives.

Typhoon orphans

Nica Cabutin has been learning to live as an orphan after her mother, father and three siblings were swept away by a tsunami-like wave that engulfed Tacloban.

She was found clutching wreckage after one of the most powerful storms ever recorded whipped up a huge surge that brought the ocean ashore, leaving the city in ruins and thousands of people dead.

Nica’s house and entire family were swept away by the sea, said Carmela Bastes, director of the Shelter for Abused Women and Children, a refuge for rape victims and those afflicted by violence, where the orphan now lives.

The young girl is shy about her lopsided hair, which was cut short so the two large gashes on the side of her head could be treated.

“She tells us she’s in first grade and we estimate she’s eight,” said Bastes, whose staff tracked the girl’s family to what had been the Alimasag neighborhood of the devastated city.

Survivors there told officials that nothing has been seen of her parents or siblings since Yolanda struck on Nov. 8.

They are presumed to be five of the more than 4,400 people the United Nations says have died, while Philippine authorities put the toll at just under 4,000.

Nica was one of the first children from Tacloban to be placed in government care after losing parents to the typhoon, said Liliosa Baltazar, director of the city’s social welfare department. But, she adds, she is not expected to be the last.

“We can’t say at this point how many there will be. We expect the local officials of the (Tacloban) districts will turn over orphaned children to us. Right now they are attending to the needs of their own families.“

3 M children affected

April Sumaylo from Save the Children in the Philippines says the charity believes around three million children have been affected in some way by the typhoon.

“We have talked to children who have lost their parents,” she said.

“We have seen some children who said they are the ones scavenging for food and water. It’s obviously distressing for them.”

Nica lives on the ground floor of the women’s shelter. Its roof was blown off in the storm and, as is the case in much of Tacloban, there is no power or water.

Under normal circumstances, she might have been placed in one of the city’s two orphanages, one run by Catholic nuns and the other by non-governmental group SOS.

But they too were badly damaged by the storm surges and ferocious winds that tore through the Philippines’ central islands.

When Nica first arrived at the shelter she would cry all the time, said Bastes, but now she is more used to being there and plays with the other children.

Despite all she has gone through, Nica is bearing up well, said Bastes, perhaps too young to understand the magnitude of the horror that has befallen her.

“We do not know if this will remain the case,” she added.