Salvacion Pacatang at her desk in the CRS/DSAC Cayagan de Oro, Philippines Office. She lost her home to flash floods triggered by Typhoon Sendong in December 2011. Photo by Autumn Brown/CRS

By Autumn Brown

Seeing Salvacion Pacatang walk around the office as the area coordinator working with Catholic Relief Services’ partner, the Diocese Social Action Center, you would never guess that her life had been turned upside down only a few months before. She is a survivor of Typhoon Sendong, the cyclone that ravaged her community in Cagayan de Oro, Philippines on the night of December 16, 2011—killing many of her friends and neighbors and sweeping her home out to sea.

The morning of the flashflood, Salvacion traveled with her family to visit a sister—leaving her 10-year-old daughter, Delseah, behind in the care of her 20-year-old nephew, John Mark.

It started to rain very heavily that night and Salvacion began to worry about her daughter. Over the phone Delseah told her that the first floor of her home was already flooded. Salvacion began to panic. She knew her daughter could not swim. Their neighbors who lived in one-story homes had come over and were staying with Delseah on the second floor for safety.
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A 6.8-magnitude earthquake struck off the coast of the Philippines in Negros Oriental province on February 6 at 11:49 am local time. Approximately 14,000 people were affected.

Although Catholic Relief Services is not directly responding to two islands hit hardest, Negros and Cebu, we express our solidarity with our sister agency, Caritas Phillipines, as they work with local dioceses to provide relief. Volunteers have been working with members of Diocesan Social Action Centers in the most affected areas and local authorities have established dozens of shelters for those who were displaced.

Nida Go sits with her daughter, Glejen Ting. Glejenís daughter, Jharrly Jean, age 14 months, died when the house they were sheltering in was hit by a floating industrial truck and collapsed. Photo by Jennifer Hardy/CRS

There are many stories of flood victims weaving through evacuation centers and temporary relocation sites after flashfloods triggered by tropical storm Washi (the storm is called “Sendong” in the Philippines) swept through low-lying areas of Cagayan de Oro in the Philippines. Stories of the youngest casualties stand out.

Glejen Ting, 20, and her mother Nida Go, 40, sit on a gently sloping hillside, resting in the shade and breezes that were scarce in their first evacuation site after tropical storm Washi. Their faces reflect the long days and noisy, restless nights after their home was washed out to sea. They’re relieved to be in a new, more open site, but as each hot day passes, the reality of their loss becomes a heavier burden. They are grieving the death of Glejen’s first baby and Nida’s first grandchild, Jharrly Jean. The bright eyed 14-month-old girl delighted her parents, grandparents, and aunts and uncles. Now the whole family waits to see if they will have a chance to properly say their goodbyes.

Nida described her family’s scramble for high ground as the flashflood took her neighborhood by surprise. “When we heard the neighbors’ shouting about the flood, we climbed on a roof. When the water moved higher, we thought the tree near our home would be best. But there were too many people in the tree, and it broke beneath us.”
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BusinessWorld, a newspaper published in the Philippines, referenced Catholic Relief Services’ successful agroenterprise program recently. The program trains poor farmers to produce and market specific vegetables needed by the country’s leading fast-food chain, Jollibee:

“Small-farmers’ cooperatives received assistance to develop the farmers’ capability to provide the company’s requirements for rice, onions, and vegetables. In 2009, about 300 farmers …were provided with training and technical assistance (e.g., adopting effective farming technologies like rain shelters to protect crops). ….Within a year, farmer clusters that produced onions and bell peppers delivered to [Jollibee], which paid them a ‘fair and just price’ for their products. This allowed the farmers to pay off their loans to the micro-finance institutions. And since the farmer groups adhere to [Jollibee]’s stringent quality standards, they become confident about dealing with other institutional clients.”

Read the BusinessWorld article.

Dina Fortich is part of CRS’ emergency response team in the Philippines. She filed this story from the Philippines.

Teresita de Leon, a mother of five in the Philippines survived Typhoon Juan. Now, her family is rebuilding their lives with the help of CRS. Photo by CRS Staff

“I have lost my vision, but I can still see that something good will come out of this tragedy,” says Teresita de Leon, mother of five. A native Philippino, Teresita has been blind from glaucoma since 2004. But on October 18, when Typhoon Juan struck, she felt she could actually see the storm’s eye pummeling and destroying her home–the wind was so strong and its howl was so deafening.
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Rachel Hermes is the CRS education program manager in northern Sudan. She filed this story from Darfur.

Neliya’s house was destroyed when, on October 18, Typhoon Juan (Megi) struck Isabela province in the Philippines. Photo by Laura Sheahen/CRS

In a town whose name, translated, means Bamboo, CRS field staffers are talking about bamboo: what it costs, where to buy it, how to cut it right to make the strongest walls. In this typhoon-hit area of the Philippines, the poorest people’s homes have been blown apart. Better-off people have already nailed back the roof sheets that Typhoon Juan blew away in October, or reassembled their walls. Resourceful villagers use clever workarounds to make up for construction materials they can’t salvage.

“Some people split a metal oil barrel, pound it flat, and use that as roofing,” says a CRS engineer.

But some poor people can’t find enough of their homes, and also can’t buy the roofing and wall materials they need to rebuild—or even the tools they need to get started.

In the village of Aggassian, Teresita Boce, 34, stands in the sun where once there was a house. She and her husband have three children; he is a day laborer, she works on a rice farm.

“We saved our children,” she says thankfully.
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From an AlertNet report:

Exhausted aid workers are gearing up for the third typhoon to strike the Philippines in less than four weeks, a storm they say could be “disastrous” for people living in the already weakened northern regions.

Within the next 24 hours Typhoon Lupit is due to hit the Luzon area in northern Philippines where thousands of people are already living in temporary accommodation. This map charts the course of the typhoon.

 This is an update to an earlier version of this post.

On Friday, October 9, a vast area northwest of Manila was hit again by Typhoon Parma causing new flooding and landslides. More than 2 million people are now affected by this storm, with 193 deaths confirmed and just over 100,000 people staying in 281 evacuation centers, according to the United Nations. An additional 4.1 million people were already affected by the first Typhoon Ketsana, which drenched Manila and its greater metropolitan area on Saturday, September 26. That storm drove more than 240,000 people from their homes who are currently staying in 471 evacuation centers, the U.N. reports.
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Debbie DeVoe, CRS regional information officer, sends in a field report from the Philippines.

Excessive rains forced officials to release water from dams. Overflowing rivers are now flooding almost the entire province of Pangasinan, according to initial reports. Photo by Debbie DeVoe/CRS

Pat Johns and I joined Sister Rosanne Mallillin of Caritas Philippines on a visit this morning to assess the widespread damage in Pangasinan province, one of two provinces currently experiencing extensive flooding and landslides.

When we reached the city of Bugallon three and a half hours northwest of Manila, we encountered a sea of water on both sides of the flooded road. Parish priests told us that people began coming to churches and schools two days earlier, knowing that river and dike levels had already hit dangerous levels—heights that rose further when officials released water from the San Roque Dam to prevent a breach.
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Children in San Pedro Laguna, south of Manila, look out from a window of a house partially submerged in floodwaters brought on by Typhoon Ketsana. Photo by Reuters/Erik de Castro, courtesy www.alertnet.org

Parma just keeps pounding the Philippines.

Arriving a week after Typhoon Ketsana hit, the typhoon was downgraded to a tropical depression but remains a deadly force as it continues to pour rain onto a saturated country.

“The province of Pangasinan is literally underwater,” says Sister Rosanne Mallillin, executive secretary of Caritas Philippines.

A  BBC photo essay shows dramatic scenes of helicopter rescues, residents stranded on a roof top and water covering farmland and villages.

According to a related BBC news story, Lt Col Ernesto Torres of the National Disaster Coordinating Council told Reuters news agency that 30,000 people had been evacuated in Pangasinan province and 60 percent to 80 percent of the land was flooded. Landslides and flooding in neighboring Benguet province have resulted in at least 120 deaths and thousands of people forced from their homes.
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