Leyte landings: a visit to Tacloban

After watching the news and internet reports of what CNN dubbed as the “strongest storm to hit land in recorded history”, we started off as a campaign called SOS Visayas to donate used tarpaulins that we had collected from the exhibitors of the Manila Auto Salon.  I saw a post from James Deakin of Oplan Hatid that the group needed the tarps, so we were delivering some over. On the way there, I received a call from Cito Beltran who was also looking for ways to help. And so we ended up going together to see what was happening at Villamor Air Base, where the Tacloban evacuees were being brought to. Witnessing how private citizens and large companies were setting up tents to feed, give medical attention, free calls, and free trips to their relatives in the metro, we knew that this was to be the start of something more.

Kuya Cito made a few calls to Jane Llanes and Eya Prospero of PAL Express and after a few hours we had tickets to go to Tacloban.  We were to join up with the Land Rover Club of the Philippines (LRCP) on November 24, with the team headed by Marc Soong, Robby Consunji, Paul Hinlo and Jun Javelosa. They had teams driving their Land Rover Defenders and other support vehicles 30 hours down south to Tacloban. Diesel fuel was donated by Ramon Ang of Petron Corporation. LRCP committed themselves to transport of relief goods to remote areas with the Office of Civil Defense, Department of National Defense (OCD, DND) and to provide mobility to the Malaysian Elite Disaster Rescue Foundation (MEDRF) for personnel and medical supplies to the remote destinations for the team lead by James Kok-Wai Chee.

We saw it as an opportunity to help and observe. The goal was to figure out the next stage after the first responders.

As the plane was circling around to descend on Tacloban, nothing was going to aptly describe the devastation we saw from above. I told kuya Cito, “We’re going to hit the ground running.” As he quickly replied, ”Yup.”

Seeing the state of the Tacloban City airport was a pitiful sight. One could not tell that it was an airport anymore had they not put up the ARRIVAL and DEPARTURE tarps where the lounges used to be. It looked like multiple bombs blew up the whole aviation facility.

Taxiing at the runway, we saw a lot of American military trucks and heavy equipment, including a rotating radar on top of a Humvee which seemed to be the only ground equipment that guided our plane down.   Upon disembarking, we were greeted by cris-crossing of truckloads of US AID cartons on trucks being led by a white British Land Rover Defender donated by the British government. A huge British Royal Air force C-130 was parked beside our commercial plane, while a US Navy Scorpion HSL 49 helicopter took off after we landed. I saw a team of from I.S.A.R. Germany – International Search and Rescue seemingly off again to another mission.

With us in the same flight were personnel from the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), and Chinese Army and Navy Generals, an advance team for the deployment and activation of their hospital ship. There were also Germans from Humedica International Aid, and a big team of nurses and doctors from the Department of Health accompanied by our friend, Hayden Kho. We learned that this was already his third medical mission since Yolanda hit.

As we got in the tattered shed of what used to be an airport, we noticed that the floor was wet and muddy with a faint smell of urine, the baggage carousel totally stripped of its rubber flaps, and the ceiling was gone. There was a small table in a corner where United Nations set up a station being manned by its personnel, and a group from the European Civil Protection from Belgium.

The road out of the airport was a harrowing picture of uprooted and mangled trees, straight out of an apocalypse movie. We drove by crushed buildings, twisted metal, overturned vehicles, tons of scattered debris, and body bags.  Further down the road revealed a lot of destruction. Industrial roofs were peeled like tin cans and collapsed concrete walls indicated that the sea came in like a tsunami. It was a picture of total damage and utter disorder. It was nothing like we’ve ever seen before.

The locals we talked to said that almost five hours of howling 200-300 kph winds, water and sand kept coming at them. A tsunami-like wave 16 meters or higher high came inland (judging by the crumpled top of a Copra plant silo).  As far as we could see, the top of the mountains were trees snapped like sticks.  All that was left was a denuded forest of fallen timber. They were either mangled or torn. We even saw old trees that were partly stripped of their bark, exposing the light inner layer. Metal sheet roofing wrapped around high trees indicated that they were travelling at a very high speed at the point of impact.

The following day we went to visit the mayor at city hall. I saw the Red Cross Society of China camped outside the driveway lawn together with other various organizations, local and international. The World Food Program WFP had an office set up beside Mayor Alfred Romualdez’s office. We also saw the Malaysian and Korean rescue teams.

As we went to the port area, we saw four huge sea vessels anchored but washed ashore. Witnesses said that the water first receded then rose and whipped those heavy vessels around and ploughed through the seaside village like they were wipers of a car. They all said that they never expected or have ever seen the strength and power of the wind and water, as during this typhoon. This typhoon flattened almost everything in its path.  Whether rich or poor, what was common to everyone was the destruction of property, lives, livelihood, and the sudden death and loss of multiple family members.

Going around for four days, we could not help but notice the personnel of the Tacloban City Bureau of Fire Protection (BFP) and the Tacloban PNP with the Scene of the Crime Operatives (SOCO) team. They were the ones pulling out the remains of the victims, already two weeks after the typhoon. We also saw how mayor Alfred Romualdez stood by his people during this time of historic devastation.

As we were flying out on November 27, I saw a Royal Australian Air Force C-130 aircraft, Australian AID crates, a Japanese Chinook helicopter circling out to sea and back, and a Canadian Lear jet sharing the airport tarmac with UK AID and UNICEF crates on the airport tarmac.

Sad as it may seem, what was quite obvious to us was that foreign organizations and governments are more concerned with the devastation that happened to the Visayas than those of us who actually live here. We sincerely hope that our government, and more of our countrymen, especially big businesses would come in and do more to pitch in even after sacrificing their Christmas party funds.  The devastation is far greater than that. The need is urgent. The people of Tacloban, after losing family members and property; still thank God for their lives, with big smiles and tears rolling down their cheeks.

To the members of the LRCP, including Rene Romero, Ritchie Romero, Tito Arbatin, Dennis Javier, Atoy Jamilla, Mike Black, Jun Javelosa, Ton Francisco, Joe Green, Justine Gamez, Ryan Vitug, Paul Hinlo, Bernie Pacquing, Louie Lim, Eduard Guinto Jr., John Percival Deveza, Dennis Javier, JB Javier, Mike De Leon, Angel Romualdo, Dondon C. Romero, Nestor Ma, Caloy Legaspi, Ron Pascual, and Matthew Pascual—you guys are the unsung heroes of today.

To end this article, I would like to share a post of Mark Soong, of Land Rover Philippines.

“MS: Did you feel God in your relief mission in Tacloban?
Marc: (With a snap of a finger) No. I quoted Mayor Duterte, God was not there when it happened. Seeing all the destruction, death, devastation, and everything we saw, how could God let something like this happen?
It was like God, took a day off.
MS: So you NEVER felt God at all?
Marc: No. SADLY, I did not.
MS: Are you sure?
Marc: Yes.
MS: Do you think you could have done what you did without him?
Marc: *Realization * I was so busy looking for hope, looking for reasons, looking for God in the destruction that I didn’t realize why I couldn’t find him. I couldn’t find God in the rubble because apparently, we were his representatives. We were working as his hand.”