A trip to Tacloban - 2

In Ormoc, as in many parts of this country, one has to be careful crossing the streets to avoid collision with motorized tricycles. When Yolanda happened in November of 2013, the guard of the hotel told me, there also fell from the skies a load of hail (small stones of ice), something like a buy one (typhoon) - take one (hail), affair. As one looks around, he sees that Ormoc, like the rest of Leyte, has a good share of the legacy of Yolanda.

One noteworthy event in my two days stay in Ormoc is while ambling along the park from which, one could see the boats for Cebu docked, I noticed an announcement that 2,000 housing units (pre-fab) are to be erected on a 50 has. property donated by Ormoc Mayor Eduard Cudilla for Yolanda victims. The housing donor, I understand, is the TZU CHI Great Love Foundation based in China. Some are proposing the site to be called City of Love. It will be located in a barangay at the outskirts of Ormoc. If you are a Yolanda victim (lost your home) and family composed of no more than of four people, you can qualify for a 21 sq. meter unit. If five and above, you can have a 27 s.m. unit. I entered a sample house. Not too big, but what the heck, it’s likely to be better than the house blown away by Yolanda.

I left Ormoc for Tacloban with thoughts on how we are, more than ever menaced by the weather, that the climate has definitely change. The two hour trip to Tacloban in a mini-bus showed how almost all the coconuts along the road and also on the flanks of the mountain had been ravaged by Yolanda. Many still stand but they appeared withered and lifeless. Will they ever bring more nuts on which many people depend to stay starvation?

The road to Tacloban from Ormoc is one of the most twisting routes in the country. You have to navigate the flanks of a mountain whose name is as twisting as the roads. We passed towns like Jaro, all of which show signs of rehabilitation. I was surprised to see a bakery with a sign “Alang-alang Bakery”. Half-baked pan de sal? Turns out that the town we were passing is called “Alang-alang”. Linguistic curiosity!

So Tacloban, at last, where I made a bee-line for Hotel Alejandro, which I discovered was located in a time warp. One is startled, upon entering the hotel premises, by a huge portrait of MacArthur with his inevitable dark aviator glasses and corn-cob pipe. With him is another big picture which looks like Marcos and if so, why is he here? Hey, remember this is Tacloban, the home-town of Imelda.

Entering the hotel, I heard the strains of God bless America, with all those historic pictures of the past. If you dine at the Alejandro’s restaurant, the tables are festooned with the flags of America and the Philippines that one is compelled to sing, “God bless America” . Other songs of that by gone era, like “I’ll be seeing you, Don’t fence me in, etc.” came from the restaurant music system.

When MacArthur returned, he stepped on Leyte’s shores way back in the month of October, 1944. A lot of characters now roaming around were not even born on that occasion. The owner of Hotel Alejandro must be trying to invent a time machine that preserves a slice of history in the formalin of time. That’s okay by me.

I hired a motorized tricycle. I told the driver I had to visit the most devastated area, so he brought me to Brgy. Magallanes whose thousands of residents were drowned by the Yolanda. Tsunami pictures of the area have been seen by every one. But standing in front of the devastated area (now filled with makeshift houses), the skeletons of ruined buildings make one shiver. The next day, as we were our way to Samar, we again passed by the area where a big iron boat almost straddles the streets and has become a tourist attraction and camera background).

How many lives were snuffed out by that gigantic wave? The government, apparently unwilling to put a high figure on Yolanda deaths, says only about 6,000 perished in Tacloban. But locals say it’s much higher- fifteen thousands, twenty thousands. And there’s a deep-seated feeling that the government has not done enough. And quickly enough. Now, foreign aid is channeled mainly through non-governmental entities and private charity organizations, a sure indication of a lack of faith in the government’s capacity to deal effectively with the tragedy.

There’s no place like Brgy. Magallanes in Tacloban to contemplate the fact that the weather of the world has really changed. That nature, suffering the abuse inflicted on the environment, is lashing back. The bottom line is ---- We are glad that MacArthur returned. We keep our finger crossed that Yolanda does not.*

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