When typhoon Haiyan spared our ancestral home
Napo Beach Resort in Maripipi Island, Biliran province. Every time the spirit of Christmas hovers around the corner, I feel the surge of excitement rushes through my spine. And the anxiety is more felt as I look back at the years I was with my loved ones during the Yuletide Season. I'm used to being away so many times before because I knew right from the start that I'd be able to withstand the pains and the rigors of the long detachment. I felt a little of remorse that I wans't one of those whose families were devastated by Supertyphoon Haiyan (Yolanda) that transformed the areas of Eastern and Western Visayas in the Philippines into vast carpet of wastelands. Consequently, more than 6,000 people, including children, died. Alone, Tacloban City, once a bastion of commercial business in Eastern Visayas, being its booming capital, is now a ghost town and so with other areas in the suburbs of Leyte province. I was raised in one of the paradise islands close to Biliran ...