Community rallies to offer aid
Calgary Filipinos worried about loved ones
Alma Fabrig smiled as she reminisced about happy childhood days at the beach with her siblings in her hometown of Tacloban, where people sang and danced in the streets and crowds gathered at church for daily mass.
But tears filled her eyes as she spoke of debris, flattened homes, and corpses that now litter what’s left of the Philippine city she once called home after Typhoon Haiyan, also known as Typhoon Yolanda, slammed into the islands Friday.
And being unable to reach her three brothers who live in the region, including one who has Down syndrome, has been unbearable for the 30-year-old mother of two and her parents in Calgary, who are relying on family and friends in other parts of the Philippines for updates.
“I’m very worried,” Fabrig said Monday, holding back sobs as tears streamed down her cheeks. “It’s been hard.”
She said she’s heard from friends in the capital city of Manila who say they have briefly been in touch with her brothers, and they are reportedly fine. But not hearing directly from them is keeping her constantly glued to her phone and computer, unable to sleep.
Initial reports indicated Friday’s typhoon may have killed 10,000 or more people, but the official death toll could be below that number. The Philippine military had confirmed 942 dead. Bodies remain strewn in the streets, as survivors plead for food, water and medicine.
Fabrig said two of her brothers live in her hometown of Tacloban, one of the hardest hit cities in the Philippines, and a third brother lives on the nearby island of Biliran.
One of her brothers in Tacloban has Down syndrome, and “gets scared when it’s raining,” she said, adding she can’t imagine what he went through when the typhoon hit. As she flipped through photos on Facebook and news websites Monday, Fabrig said she’s still in disbelief that much of her home of 19 years has been destroyed.
The disaster has prompted members of Calgary’s growing Filipino community to organize relief efforts.
Fabrig’s husband’s aunt, Carmen Baladad said the iRemit remittance office in Pacific Place Mall where she works has been collecting donations and waiving service fees for Filipino-Calgarians to send money to certain foundations in the Philippines. Baladad added a telethon is in the works.
“Every Filipino in Calgary or Canada has a family or a friend back home affected by this tragedy,” said telethon organizer Paolo Oliveros, who is helping round up donations and supplies for a canned goods food drive.
“This is a tragedy you cannot predict. It will be easier for our fellow Filipinos if we can pull together.”
Volunteers with Samaritan’s Purse Canada’s Calgary office are assembling 6,000 hygiene kits including soap, shampoo, toothbrushes, toothpaste, and other items to rush to typhoon evacuees.
The Christian relief organization is sending a specialized team to help disaster victims and to survey the full extent of the damage.
In nine days, Tim Kikkert, with the Samaritan’s Purse, will leave the comforts of Toronto as part of a “second wave” of relief workers for a “chaotic” scene in the Philippines.
Kikkert, 26, spent 15 months as a volunteer in Haiti helping that country rebuild from a deadly earthquake three years ago. Based on that experience, he said Filipinos will likely be in dire need of materials to build temporary shelters, health supplies and clean drinking water.
“People in Calgary are probably more familiar than most with how water damage can affect general health,” he added. “Disease spread can be rampant and get out of hand. With the flooding, the devastation the lack of infrastructure you’re getting a high risk of diseases spreading among a population to regular health care.”
More than 47,000 respondents to the latest National Household Survey in the Calgary area identified themselves as Filipino, making the community the third-largest visible minority group in the city, next to South Asians and Chinese.
Between 2006 and 2011, Filipinos were the largest single group of immigrants arriving in the Calgary area, according to data from the 2011 survey.
With an estimated 100,000 temporary foreign workers from the Philippines calling Alberta home, Calgary’s already burgeoning community is feeling the effects.
Calgary newcomer George Lacson says he’s keeping in touch with loved ones as often as he can.
“I’m very worried. My son and mother-in-law are there; the roof of my house is gone,” said Lacson, who has called Calgary home for just two months. “It’s so much tragedy.”
Multiculturalism Minister Jason Kenney, speaking after a Remembrance Day ceremony in Calgary, said he’s “absolutely devastated to see the damage, the loss of life.”
The federal government has pledged $5 million in relief and will match Canadians’ donations. dollar-fordollar. Canada is also deploying 35 to 50 members of its rapid-response team to assess the needs on the ground and identify relief options.
“We will be there in a very significant way, financially, practically,” Kenney said in Calgary. “We’ll do everything we can to help the Filipino people during this time of great devastation.”