Typhoon victims wait in line for free rice at a businessman’s warehouse in Tacloban, Philippines. Aid agencies faced challenges getting food and water to the hundreds of thousands of Filipinos. ( CNS photo/Erik De Castro, Reuters)
As heart-wrenching reports of Super Typhoon Haiyan’s unprecedented toll on the Philippines circulated last week, Hawaii’s Filipino Catholics did their best to make contact, pray and demonstrate solidarity with their brothers and sisters across the Pacific.
The Hawaii Catholic Herald spoke to several local religious, clergy and parishioners who have ties to the central Philippine region hit by the storm. They recounted stories from friends and family caught in its path — many of whom fortunately survived — and shared ways they plan to help those back home rebuild.
Haiyan was a Category 5 typhoon with torrential rain and winds nearing 200 mph. It made landfall between Nov. 7-9, destroying towns in the northern parts of Leyte and Cebu islands.
About 200 miles west of where the eye of the storm passed is the island of Panay. There, the Dominican Sisters of the Most Holy Rosary, who have five convents in Hawaii, have a motherhouse in the city of Iloilo. Several Dominicans assigned to Hawaii said Haiyan damaged their family homes and flooded the order’s Iloilo schools.
Sister Mary Sixtilles Pillado at St. Elizabeth School in Aiea said she wasn’t able to contact her family for several days after the storm hit. They connected by phone for a few minutes on Nov. 12, but still can’t text one another due to downed power in the region.
“They are all safe,” she said. “I pray for them. I can’t do anything.”
Her two sisters, two brothers and 71-year-old mom live in Iloilo. Sister Mary Sixtilles said Haiyan’s gusts blew the roof off one of their houses and flattened “almost 90 percent” of their neighbors’ homes. Another sister in Manila has been aiding the family.
“My mom said ‘this is the worst (storm),’” Sister Mary Sixtilles said. “She was so scared.”
Sister M. Merle Lebaquin, who resides at the Dominican Center in Waipahu, said her sister reported winds whipping through Iloilo “for two hours.” Thirty banana trees on her family’s property were blown over.
“It was their means of living,” she said.
Photos Sister Merle has seen on Facebook showed the Dominican-run schools in the area devastated. At St. Ann School in Balasan, the roof was lost, and chairs and tables were scattered. At Eucharistic King Academy in Sara, the computer lab was flooded out.
“You can see the keyboards everywhere,” Sister Merle said. “Everything got wet.”
Sister M. Candelaria Perania at St. John the Baptist School in Kalihi said she hopes to get her students and their parents involved in aiding these damaged Dominican schools, financially or in other ways.
“We are trying to help even just a little,” she said.
Typhoon belt
Hawaii has almost two dozen diocesan priests “on loan” from the Philippines. Most of these clergy, however, come from dioceses far north or south of Haiyan’s storm path.
Father Rufino Gepiga, administrator of St. Rita Church in Haiku, Maui, is from the Diocese of Sorsogon. Located in the Central Visayas region, Sorsogon is about 100 miles north of where Haiyan struck in Leyte.
“We just missed the typhoon by a hairline,” Father Gepiga said. “If it moved one degree up, we would’ve been surely hit.”
Father Gepiga said the Central Philippines is often called the “Typhoon Belt.” Residents there are accustomed to roughly 24 typhoons developing annually off-shore, with possibly half of them hitting land.
Storms seem to get stronger each year, Father Gepiga said, perhaps as a result of global warming.
“I know how it is to be victimized by a super typhoon,” said Father Gepiga, who recalled Typhoon Reming in 2006, the strongest storm to hit the Philippines before Haiyan.
“You feel helpless, you don’t know what to do,” he added. “These are calamities of our creation.”
One priest recently retired from service in Hawaii and moved back to his hometown in Leyte just a few months ago. Father Teodulo “Teddy” Gaquit of the Archdiocese of Palo spent 13 years in hospital ministry in the Islands. He had resided and frequently celebrated Mass at St. Anthony Church in Kalihi.
The Herald received a brief email sent from Father Gaquit in the Philippines on Nov. 17.
“I am alive, survived the super typhoon,” wrote the priest.
Father Gaquit recently built a new home in Leyte, one of the areas hardest hit by Haiyan.
“My new house is roofless,” he said. “The place is still in chaos, no institution is functioning.”
Local aid efforts
Bishop Larry Silva has authorized special parish collections to be taken up for the victims of Typhoon Haiyan. The funds, he wrote in a Nov. 12 letter, “will be used to support the efforts of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops and Catholic Relief Services.”
Father Edgar Brillantes, pastor at Sts. Peter and Paul Church in Honolulu, said his parish has already scheduled a special collection for typhoon aid on the second Sunday in December. While each parish can schedule these collections at anytime, Bishop Silva suggested that Thanksgiving Day or Misa de Gallo offertories could be appropriate occasions.
The Diocesan Congress of Filipino Catholic Clubs, or DCFCC, held its annual state convention Nov. 9-10. Father Brillantes, who is also the DCFCC spiritual director, said its members prayed for those affected by the storm and reflected on the tragedy during Mass homilies. Members were also urged to take up collections in their areas.
Cathedral of Our Lady of Peace parishioner and veteran local journalist Emme Tomimbang will be helping to coordinate an upcoming fundraiser for typhoon victims. She will be working with the board of directors from the FilCom Center in Waipahu on the event.
The FilCom Center will be accepting checks and partnering up with a non-governmental organization to help to raise, secure, and disseminate funds directly to the storm survivors. The center is also involved with “Aloha Philippines,” which will receive checks for the typhoon victims through financial institutions such as Bank of Hawaii, First Hawaiian Bank, American Savings Bank and Central Pacific Bank.
The Visayan Catholic Community plans to donate to relief efforts money collected during their Santo Nino celebration in January. Catholic parishioner Lumantas is also spreading word about a benefit concert coordinated by the local Congress of Visayan Organizations, “Kokua for Philippines: A Night of Hope,” 5:30 p.m., Sunday, Dec. 1, in the McKinley High School Auditorium.
“It’s so sad our beloved country was struck with this unimaginable calamity,” Lumantas said. “But we have to brace them all with our prayers and help in some way or another.”
