OFFBEAT MAIL

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 ...

Firemen help retrieve a body from the heaps of debris. Photo: Flickr From what I've witnessed on the boob tube a few days after super typhoon Yolanda (international code name; Haiyan) struck Eastern Visayas, the influx of people had flooded the airport in their desperate attempt  to escape the devastation and hunger in Tacloban City and elsewhere in Leyte and Samar. I could see their turgid faces painted with frustrations and fears. From media interviews, they said that they just wanted to get away from the bad situation for a while. Their destination was either the cities of Manila or Cebu. However, the C-130 cargo planes of the Philippine Air Force and US Air Force could only accommodate at least 170 people each. The situation had left more and more people scrambling to have a free ride to their destinations. As desperate people lined up at the airport, relief goods distributors, rescuers and cleaners from Metro Manila and other foreign countries were busy doing their dut...