I know that Tacloban will rise, like the Phoenix, from its utter devastation. My beloved hometown and the province of Leyte have been through worse. It was in Palo, a few kilometers from Tacloban, where General Douglas MacArthur and the allied forces landed on October 20, 1944, on the way to the liberation of the Philippines. The destruction was awesome. But the province and the people soon got back on their feet. Leyteños are indomitable.
At the moment, however, I am still stunned and can only weep for childhood memories destroyed, extend my sympathy to those who have lost their loved ones, and pray that my own relatives and friends are safe.
I was born in Tacloban and lived there up to my 14th birthday. That was when we relocated to Manila. The past few days, while watching the horrible scenes on TV showing Tacloban’s devastated streets, bodies lying in mud puddles, people moving about like zombies, drained of their tears, scenes of my childhood have rushed back to me, superimposed over the ruins.
We used to live on Calle Burgos, and then the family moved to the vicinity of Camp Bumpus, near the Leyte provincial capitol building. It was a short walk to the beach. Weekends were spent at the theaters on Gran Capitan in the downtown area, or fishing at the pier, or cavorting in the sea.
Tacloban is a small place. I would hike from one end of town to the other when I was in the grades and in my early years in high school. I think I held the record for enrolling in more schools than anyone in Leyte (or maybe the entire country). Three in the grades: Holy Infant Academy (where Imelda, Kokoy, Bejo and the other Romualdezes studied). Leyte Normal School and Leyte Colleges. And two high schools in Tacloban alone. I fear that all of those school buildings have been destroyed.
I was four years old when the first wave of US Air Force P-38’s strafed the Tacloban airport by Cancabato Bay at the mouth of the San Juanico Straits. I was playing in the yard when the planes flew overhead. Japanese troops in the garrison across the street from our house rushed out jubilantly, thinking that the planes were reinforcements. Then the bombing began. When Gen. MacArthur and his troops marched into town, I was seated on the steps of the house waving the victory sign.
My childhood recollection is understandably vague, but I could swear that Yolanda inflicted more damage on Tacloban than the Japanese Imperial Army and American liberation forces combined.
The Tacloban of my childhood is no more. The downtown area is a pile of rubble, corrugated roofing, pieces of wood and debris, hiding a lifeless body here and there. The airport has been totally destroyed. I wonder what happened to the MacArthur memorial on Red Beach in nearby Palo. Were the bigger-than-life statues of MacArthur, Osmeña, Romulo and the others able to withstand the force of Yolanda?
It was pure torment, following the reports of CNN, GMA and TFC on the ongoing havoc and the subsequent carnage. Confronted by helplessness, one could only pray. And in Yolanda’s wake, one could only peer at the faces of the survivors on the TV screen, hoping to recognize a relative or a friend. For days, my family and I also scanned the newspapers, surfed the Internet and checked out FaceBook in the hope that someone could give us some news about our relatives.
Monday, I finally received an online message about the family of my late brother, Dr. Vic Makabenta. Through a classmate of my niece, Riza, I got word that my sister-in-law, Meling, and the rest of the children and grandchildren were safe. I still don’t know how my other relatives are, in Tacloban, San Miguel, Barugo and Carigara.
My father’s hometown of Carigara, which is by the sea, is reported to have suffered heavily from the storm surge, as well as the punishing wind. The Makabenta clan is the largest in that town. How my relatives fared is something we are still anxious to hear about.
I understand, from a FaceBook posting of Nancy Harrington of Books for the Barrios, that a school in which she had a very successful Model of Excellence Program, for both pupils and teachers, has been totally destroyed. The school, according to Nancy, was built by the Thomasites in the early 1900s and was over a century old.
Two days before Yolanda was expected to hit land, I learned from my niece, Riza, who works with the Tacloban fire department, that they were on high alert. The last message from her was when Yolanda started to wreak havoc. Riza posted on FaceBook that the wind was very strong and nakakatakot. Scary. Because all means of communication were down in the wake of Yolanda, there was no way of finding out if she and the rest of the family had survived. Reports of the death toll, ranging in estimates from a few hundreds to ten thousand, were not reassuring.
Riza finally managed to ask a classmate to relay a message to me: “Gud pm po clasmyt ako ni riza ngpasabi sya na ok dw cla dun wla nman dw casualty or injured need ln tlga nla assistance n lilipat cla sa barugo.”
They are okay. No casualties. No injuries. They just need help to be able to relocate to Barugo, where my sister-in-law’s relatives live. That could mean that their little bungalow at V&G subdivision has been destroyed.
That house meant a lot to my younger brother. Vic and Meling literally scratched the ground to pay the down payment and the monthly amortization. Although a doctor who occasionally delivered talks on primary health care for the World Health Organization, in conferences in Australia and China, Vic did not earn enough. He had more lucrative options, but he refused to take them.
He and his family could have avoided the fury of Yolanda and other natural calamities regularly punishing Leyte. He could have immigrated to the U.S., the way we did. I did ask him once if he had any plans of moving his medical practice to America.
His reply was short and sharp: “There are more than enough doctors in America. I am needed here.” We never discussed the subject again.
My brother was assistant provincial health officer in Biliran, when it was still a sub-province of Leyte. He had a say on what drugs to purchase for the local hospital. A sales rep of a major drug company dropped in at his house one day, remarked that it could use some improvements and offered to cover the expenses. It was obvious, what the agent was implying. Outraged, Vic literally threw the sales rep out the door and blacklisted him from then on.
Vic died in his mid-forties, leaving a family just managing to make ends meet. He could have chosen to provide for them, as well as for himself, by choosing an option that many of our politicians and public officials routinely succumb to.
Indeed, it makes you wonder which devastation is worse: That caused by typhoon Yolanda or that wreaked by Napoles, Pogi, Tanda, Sexy and the rest of their merciless brood. I weep for Tacloban. And I weep for our country, too.
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