Part Two
SUPERTYPHOON Yolanda’s devastation caused a policeman to regret wearing a uniform.
“My mind was not on what I was doing. I was disheartened,” he told the BusinessMirror. “There I was, bringing other people to safety, while I don’t even know what happened to my own family.”
But as the young cop from Palompon found his family in Palo on November 9, civilian volunteers worked in tandem with the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) medical team at the Tacloban airport.
Maximo P. del Ponso Jr. of the 134th Philippine Coast Guard (PCG) Auxiliary Squadron told the BusinessMirror his group put up a makeshift clinic and treated patients who had simple wounds, from lacerations to incisions.
“Those who had more serious injuries or illnesses were handled by the AFP medical team,” said del Ponso, a physician.
Everybody shared what they had brought, such as intravenous fluids, bandages and all sorts of medical supplies, he recalled.
“That was a very positive experience,” del Ponso said. “Everybody was sharing and helping out.”
While the Philippine Air Force’s C-130s flew almost incessantly, the three transport planes were just not enough to meet the demands on the ground. On the first few critical days after a storm surge hit Tacloban, only those who were able to reach the airport had any hope of receiving food, water and medical treatment. Annie, a 16-year-old resident of San Jose, Tacloban, recalled those first few days.
“I was able to take a picture of the oncoming rush of water. My camera was the only thing that I have left. But we lost our home,” she said. “We were very lucky to survive. We were getting some relief goods, but not enough.”
By the evening of November 9, the airport was fast becoming a vital supply hub. However, civilian volunteers were still not allowed to deploy outside the airport. They were told that the police could not guarantee their safety. The additional units from the Philippine National Police (PNP) Special Action Force and the Army were still securing the city.
Samar deployment
AS additional support teams and supplies trickled in, the situation began to stabilize within the airport. The senior military officer at the Tacloban airport felt he now had enough spare personnel to send to isolated towns and villages.
“On the second day, November 10, he sent us to Guiuan and Hernani,” Jesse Estrella, who was with del Ponso’s group, said. “We were tasked to assess the situation there and report back to him.” But the effort to assist the survivors was not without cost to del Ponso’s team.
“We had to send back to Manila a couple of team members,” del Ponso added. “They were emotionally distraught by what they had witnessed. They could not stay.”
Estrella took the remaining half of the team to Hernani, while del Ponso took the rest. They were sent to Guiuan and Hernani onboard helicopters.
“A lot of people were waiting for us in Guiuan. The folks there thought that we had brought enough supplies with us on the helicopter,” del Ponso said. “What we had were medicines provided by the military, our own supplies from Manila and two sacks of food, just enough for one meal for about a hundred families.”
But Estrella and his men had to do one task first: retrieve corpses lying strewn on street. They helped clear the roads so that supply convoys can reach Hernani, a fifth-class municipality 199 kilometers from the Eastern Samar capital of Catbalogan City.
With the road cleared of bodies and debris, Estrella’s team was able to complete their survey quickly and return to Tacloban immediately.
However, the situation in Guiuan was different.
Guiuan
THIS is the town where Supertyphoon Yolanda (international code name Haiyan) made landfall on November 8, 2013. But this was also the town that del Ponso said was well-organized. He credits Mayor Christopher Gonzales for this. According to him, Gonzales had commissioned all the remaining medical facilities and pharmacies in the town and brought all surviving medical personnel and supplies to the municipal hall.
He said, Gonzales, who was reportedly charged in May by the Ombudsman for fraud, had all the food and fresh water left gathered from all the damaged stores and stockpiled them at the municipal hall “so that these could be distributed to the people in an orderly fashion. There was no looting,” del Ponso said. “However, whatever was left was just not enough.”
At Guiuan, del Ponso’s team cleared a wrecked public school to be used as a temporary clinic. Other desks were used as makeshift beds.
“The problem at that time was that we ran out of tetanus toxoid,” he said. “The only thing we could do was to clean the wounds as best as we could and bandage them.” According to del Ponso, next to run out were the antibiotics.
“These were quickly used up,” he said. “Even the municipal health office was running out of medicines, despite efforts to salvage supplies from pharmacies and the hospital.”
The emergency medical effort was organized under the guidance of Yvonne Egargo, the provincial heath officer who lives in Guiuan.
Evacuation
BY the time Estrella and del Ponso’s teams returned to Tacloban, the evacuation of survivors from the city began.
Del Ponso said people with serious medical cases were flown out via C-130 to Cebu for treatment.
“Our job at the receiving center of the airbase is to help refugees find places to stay,” said Erlinda T. Parme, a social worker from the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) Field Office 7. “Six evacuation centers in Lapu-Lapu City have communication facilities to help survivors contact their relatives.”
However, each evacuation center can only accommodate 150 to 300 people at any given time, Parme recalled. Refugees from Ormoc, Guian and Tacloban arrived in droves.
“Many arrived only with the clothes on their backs,” Parme said. “They are relieved to be alive.”
Foreign aid
WHAT del Ponso could not forget was American tourist Gregg Anderson.
When Yolanda arrived, Anderson was in a resort an hour away from Guiuan and was trapped there for a while, del Ponso recalled. Anderson fainted upon finally reaching Guiuan’s town center.
“When he finally made his way to Guiuan, he was severely ill because he took contaminated food and water. We inserted an IV [intravenous] line on him,” del Ponso added. “He later found out that he received the last IV fluid available in Guiuan. He was evacuated to Cebu.”
After several weeks, Anderson returned with $10,000, which he used to buy construction materials for rebuilding the town. Anderson’s effort was one of the help that came from foreign sources.
Four days after supertyphoon left a trail of death and destruction across a large part of the country, emergency assistance from foreign governments arrived in Tacloban.
“When we got back to Tacloban from Guiuan, the first of the foreign aid had just arrived,” del Ponso recalled. “The first ones I saw were the Australians and Singaporeans. Then the Americans, British and other foreign military contingents arrived. That was about 3 in the afternoon.” What del Ponso saw was the beginning of a massive influx of foreign emergency assistance. To be concluded