‘We’ve lost it all’
77-year-old says she’s seen dozens of typhoons — and this was the worst
Evelyn Banate has never heard of Canada, nor does she have any idea what a Canadian is.
But the wizened 77-year-old grandmother is immensely grateful that Canada’s Disaster Assistance Response Team (DART) will arrive within days at the north end of Panay Island to offer help to as many as one million distressed Filipinos scrambling for food, water and medical care in the crushing aftermath of last Friday’s typhoon Haiyan.
“I lost my two houses and everything in them,” Banate said as she grimly surveyed the flattened remains of the two palm and bamboo nipa huts where she and a dozen members of her extended family once lived. “I knew this typhoon was going to be bad, but I had no idea that it would be like this. It is by far the worst typhoon I’ve ever experienced, and I’ve experienced 40 or 50 of them in my life.”
DART, which set out from Canada three days ago, will soon number about 200. The Canadians were to begin Friday setting up their operations out of the governor’s building in the city of Roxas, which is up the road from Estancia. The nearby town of Basulan and a string of other communities in the typhoon’s direct path between here and Roxas were utterly devastated by the storm.
As of Thursday, there were 64 Canadian military personnel on the ground in the Philippines and another 54 en route. These include engineers from CFB Gagetown in New Brunswick, who are expected to help clear debris and re-establish basic services like water and electricity. There are also two officials from the Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development who have been sent to help, in addition to an unspecified number of personnel from the Canadian Embassy in Manila. Military officials in Ottawa said Canada might deploy between three and six Griffon helicopters to help move personnel around to where they’re needed most, though that decision won’t be made until a full assessment of the situation.
Immigration Minister Chris Alexander also announced Thursday that the government will fast-track visa applications from Filipinos who can demonstrate they have been “significantly and personally” affected by the typhoon. Filipinos visiting Canada will also receive special treatment from immigration if they want to extend their stay.
A hulking Royal Canadian Air Force C-17 Globemaster from CFB Trenton descended on Iloilo’s modest airport shortly after dawn Thursday. It brought the first wave of 43 Canadian troops and emergency relief gear, including a water purification plant and a basic medical and repair capability.
Iloilo was barely touched by the typhoon, but the storm left a fantastic path of death and destruction from first landfall on the islands of Samar and Leyte, before pushing west across northeastern Panay, where its fury can first be seen beginning an hour’s drive north of the provincial capital.
About 65,000 homes were ripped apart or washed away on Panay, which is about 300 kilometres west of Tacloban — the area where most of the media and emergency relief efforts have been concentrated until now. Although only a few hundred people are believed to have died here, compared to several thousand in and near Tacloban, the needs of people here are urgent and enormous.
When they reach the north of the island, the Canadians will see children clanking tin cans for money and holding up handmade signs begging in English for food and water. A path has been mostly cleared along the main road, with thousands of tons of debris already shunted aside. But for more than 100 kilometres, all power lines are down and there are entire hillsides where palm and deciduous trees have been snapped in two as if they had been matchsticks.
Andrew Barcelona stood glumly in front of the ruins of what had been home to him, his wife and their four children in Estancia.
“We’ve lost it all and have only received a one-kilo pack of rice and some noodles from our barangay (district) captain in the past six days,” said the unemployed, 30-year-old labourer.
Surveying a panorama of dozens of other destroyed homes as well as shattered trees, Barcelona said he had no idea how he was going to rebuild his family’s meagre life when they did not have a single Philippine peso to their name.
Squatting across the alley from where Barcelona was building a lean-to for his family to sleep under, Helen Tagibue, 56, said she and her nine children and grandchildren had made it out with only seconds to spare before a massive tree came down, shattering her home and those of two neighbours.
“The wind was so crazy we crawled on our hands and knees a few hundred metres up the road to the barangay headquarters, which was the only building still standing,” she said.
A few hundred metres away, Geraldine Abrece furiously worked a small calculator. She was trying to figure out how to repay a 300,000-peso ($7,200) loan on her house, small convenience store and junkyard, which were all totally destroyed by the storm. Abrece’s loan carried a 20 per cent interest charge due every two months. The loan shark who had given her the money had already been around to tell her that as a favour he was going to forgive one week’s interest.
One of Abrece’s workers, 23-year-old Marjohn Barlas, said he and seven others had taken refuge underneath a six-tonne truck.
“It was shaking so hard, we were sure we were going to die,” Barlas said.
“Food and clothes would be a start,” he laughed, when asked what he urgently needed. “After that, it would be nice if somebody could give me material so I can build a new house.”
As night fell and smoky campfires provided the only light for hundreds of kilometres around, Barlas pointed to a homemade bed near what had been his own home. That was where he would be spending the night — looking at the stars, wondering what comes next.