Phl thanks world for Yolanda aid

MANILA, Philippines - The Philippines took to social media and bought ad space in the world’s most prominent strips yesterday to thank the global community for its help three months after a devastating typhoon that killed more than 6,000 people and left 2,000 still missing.

Electronic billboards lit up simultaneously at New York’s Times Square, Galeries Lafayette in Paris, Tokyo’s Shibuya Crossing and London’s Piccadilly Circus early yesterday, at the exact time Super Typhoon Yolanda (Haiyan) struck Eastern Visayas on Nov. 8 last year.

“The number of lives lost and affected is unprecedented. But ever since then, the world has been one with the Philippines in helping rebuild the nation,” the Department of Tourism behind the ad campaign said on its website.

“This Feb. 8... exactly three months after the typhoon, we want to be one in expressing our gratitude,” the DOT said on its Twitter account, where it also posted pictures of the billboards.

Yolanda, one of the strongest typhoons ever to hit land, smashed across 171 towns and cities in the central islands with a combined land area the size of Portugal, wrecking the homes of more than four million people.

The government is still collecting corpses and looking for nearly 2,000 missing people after the deaths of 6,201 victims were confirmed, many of them swept away by giant, tsunami-like waves unleashed by Yolanda on coastal communities.

As those in the disaster zone struggle to rebuild with the help of international humanitarian organizations, the DOT urged Filipinos yesterday to let the world know of their gratitude in its “Phthankyou” campaign on social media.

It urged them to download some of the department’s “The Philippines says thank you” notes, plastered on pictures showing the country’s top tourist draws, and post them on Facebook, Twitter and other popular social networking sites.

Russell Geekie, spokesman for the UN disaster agency in the Philippines, said the government-led relief effort has addressed many of the survivors’ most acute emergency needs.

It was shifting to an “early recovery” phase with a focus on restoring livelihoods for millions of people, he added.

However, “shelter needs remain enormous.”

“Obviously we talk about resilient people, but the scope of the disaster and destruction is such that it’s very hard. There are remaining psycho-social needs that need to be met,” he said.

Help from China Red Cross

Meanwhile, the Red Cross Society of China is set to turn over 166 classrooms to devastated communities tomorrow.

The classrooms were built in partnership with the Philippine Red Cross.

“The partnership between the Philippine Red Cross and the Red Cross Society of China shows the best in our peoples when we work for the common good of our fellowmen,” PRC chairman Richard Gordon said in a statement.

Gordon said the project symbolizes “the good that can be achieved due to enduring ties that bind both nations and that great goodwill, closer cooperation and friendship is achieved when both Red Cross societies cooperate on projects that benefit humanity.”

Gordon and Zhao Baige, executive vice president of the Red Cross Society of China, will fly to Tacloban tomorrow for the turnover ceremony.

According to Zhao, the Hong Kong branch of the Red Cross Society of China donated 9,300 student armchairs and 166 sets of teachers’ tables and chairs.

“We were shocked to learn the damage, the destruction, the despair brought about by Haiyan, or Yolanda as you call it,” she said.

“When we came to know over 6,000 died, we sent our search and rescue team; when we learned that there are nearly 30,000 injuries, we sent our medical team; when we were aware that over four million people are affected, among whom tens of thousands of students could not go back to school because their classrooms are damaged, we sent our construction team,” she added.

In addition, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) said UN agencies and their partners are now prioritizing longer-term assistance aimed at getting children back to schools and parents to work.

“Our focus to date has been on providing life-saving aid to those children and communities that were hardest hit by the typhoon and who are most at risk,” said Angela Kearney, UNICEF representative in the Philippines.

“We are making real progress, but so much more needs to be done to restore these children’s rights and to return to them their chance to fulfill their potential,” she said.

The International Labor Organization, for its part, said it hopes to create more jobs and generate income at the community level in typhoon-hit areas. – With Sheila Crisostomo, Pia Lee-Brago