FPTI-Daguiao-Tawili held its second major relief operations last December 1, 2013, just 2 weeks after the first one. This time, there were more volunteers who joined (22 students and young professionals), more relief goods distributed (300 bags), and more towns visited (10 towns in all 5 provinces of Panay Island: Iloilo, Capiz, Antique and Aklan).
We divided into 5 different groups and used 10 vehicles to reach different points of Panay in one day. The Aklan group left Iloilo City at 3:00 a.m. to get to Kalibo by 8:00 a.m. The Antique-bound group left at 5:30 a.m. to catch the boats from Culasi to bring them to Mararison Island where most houses got destroyed by the typhoon. The rest headed for Capiz and Iloilo by 7:00 a.m.
Many of the families were already visited in the previous trip. Hence, this follow-up visit aims to see how their situations have improved after receiving aid from our donors. We were happy to see several houses already repaired and some are already being put up in a span of 2 weeks. The others will indeed take time to build because of the extent of the damage. This gave us more reasons to continue helping them rise above the devastation caused by Typhoon Haiyan/Yolanda.
With the help of our generous donors, their dream will be made into reality. Remembering the tear-stained yet happy and grateful faces of the persons we’ve helped, we went back home tired but happy. One woman who had received a bag of relief goods told us, “May the Lord bless you in all your endeavors for the good that you are doing.” Our exhaustion disappeared in an instant.
Everyone in the core group brainstormed on a title for our relief operations. We came up with “Padayon Panay”. “Padayon” is a Hiligaynon word which means “continue”. With our efforts and generosity of our donors, we hope to help the people of Panay Island to move on and pick up where they have left off after this “pause” – not a stop – that they have experienced.