Situação dos atingidos pelo tufão Yolanda, no Sul das Filipinas. Relato do coordenador SVD de JUPIC da província sul das Filipinas!

For thousands of people in southern Philippines, life has become so unbearably painful. There seems to be no let up to calamities that claimed so many lives and destroyed incalculable properties. Just yesterday, we were again visited by a very strong typhoon, named “Yolanda” (Hainya) that many claimed, could be the strongest typhoon that ever formed on this earth. It had a wind speed of 350 kilometers per hour near the center – making “Pablo” (Bhopa) in Mindanao, less than a year ago, looks like a mere wind in comparison.

“Yolanda” is already the sixth calamity that we have experienced in the south in less than two years. In December of 2011, there was typhoon Sendong that claimed thousands of lives in Cagayan de Oro alone. That was immediately followed by an earthquake in Negros Oriental that buried scores of people alive. Next was the cyclone in Camiguin Island which was soon succeeded by super typhoon “Pablo”, the typhoon that brought trauma to farmers no end. We have not yet overcome the effects of Pablo when another furious earthquake struck in Bohol – the phenomenon that had only started to sink in to everyone’s psyche.  And now, just three weeks after, “Yolanda” came.

As of this writing, we only get glimpses of the real devastation along the paths razed by “Yolanda”; due to the loss of communication lines. Cell phone transmitters must have been toppled down and telephone cables cut since phone calls could not go through. News feeds and photos provided to the public via satellite phones and international news services, however gruesome, are nowhere near to capturing the comprehensive situation. For one, there is no way as yet to verify the destructions that are happening in rural areas and far flung barangays. Death estimates are too small to believe in. What we are sure of are the facts that food and water supplies are running out very fast, no electricity in the whole island, numerous number of individuals have died, destruction is everywhere and the problem of inaccessibility is widespread, slowing down upcoming relief operations.

The SVDs have a number of confreres assigned to our school Liceo Del Verbo Divino in Tacloban City, the city that embraced the most devastation. We don’t have news about them yet as of this writing – a real cause for worry.  Likewise, we also have many SVD confreres who come from Leyte and Samar areas and they too have no news about their families back home.

Less than two years; six big time calamities: is simply too difficult to go through. People, too, have limited resilience. Relief operations, no matter how generous and dedicated, are bound to show signs of fatigue. But “there is no rest to the wicked”, as the saying goes. Wherever and whenever there are suffering people, we refresh and sustain our resolve to serve. We, the Divine Word Missionaries, in times of pain and difficulties, reaffirm our calling to be at the forefront whenever our services are called for. For this is the only way we make gospel values alive, real and dynamic to the people we vowed to serve.

When will all these sufferings end? No answer is ever necessary.

Fr. Eugene Docoy, SVD

JPIC-PHS