Sendong / Washi Relief: How You Can Help Locally and Overseas

My friend Nell dug this up for me from Facebook. What follows is a very comprehensive list of contacts and ways to help out those in Cagayan de Oro and Iligan locally and overseas, compiled from Twitter and Facebook by Anne Elicaño.

Flash floods claim more than 500 lives in the Philippines one week before Christmas; This is how you can help

by Anne Elicaño on Sunday, December 18, 2011 at 12:30pm

(Last updated: December 19, 3.31pm)

Quick facts about Typhoon Sendong:

• At least 500 people are dead in Northern Mindanao, mostly from Cagayan de Oro and in nearby Iligan City. Strong tropical typhoons rarely hit the area so people were caught unaware when Typhoon Sendong swept through. Flash floods swept hundreds of houses into the sea in the middle of the night.
• An estimated 100,000 people were displaced which is the worst storm in the history of the region.
• Cagayan de Oro and Iligan contain many of the most fertile agricultural lands in the Philippines. The local economy will suffer a blow because of the flash flood.
• In Iligan City, food, water, clothing, blankets, lights and mosquito nets are urgently needed, according to reports by the Philippine Red Cross.

Watch: http://youtu.be/2WtsUAc3oBE

I’ve started compiling information from Twitter and Facebook. Here’s how you can help:

INTERNATIONAL

• Donate to the Philippine Red Cross through online transfer- http://www.redcross.org.ph/donatenow
• LBC is accepting donations WORLDWIDE. They will directly send to LBC Foundation Philippines whose NGO partner in Cagayan de Oro is Red Cross.

1.  KSA – Store 14-16 Abi Alabass co. Murshdi Sts. Al Batha District Riyadh, KSA
2.  UAE –  Mubarak Khalifa Bldg 75 Shop 4 10D St Al Karama, Dubai, UAE
3. Singapore – LBC Aircargo 2/F Lucky Plaza 304 Orchard Road Singapore
4. HK – Worldwide 1, 2 & 33/F Worldwide House 19 Des Veoux Road Central HK
5. HK – Tsuen Wan Branch 2/F Liksang Plaza 269 Castle Peak Road Tsuen Wan, New Territory
6. HK -Hung Hom Branch G/F Planet Square 1-15 Takman St Hunghom, Kowloon
7. HK – Northpoint Branch G/F Blk 7-14 Garden 233 Electric Road
8. HK – To Kwa Wan Warehouse 2/F On Lok Factory Bldg. Blk C.  88-90 Kawloon City Road Tokwawan, Kowloon
9. HK – Kennedy Warehouse 20/F Hongkong Industrial Bldg 444-456 Des Veoux Road, West HK
10. Brunei – G-06 Badiah Complex Jalan Tutong, BSB
11. Malaysia – G/F Kota Raya Complex Lot G.13 Jalan Tun Tan Cheng Lock, KL
12. Malaysia  – B11 4.08 Complex Tun Abdul Razak Georgetown, Pulau Penang
13. Taiwan –  No. 27-1 Chung Shan North Road, Sec. 3 Chung Shan District, Taipei City
14. Taiwan – No. 360-5 Demin Rd. Nantzu District, Kaohsuing
15. Taiwan – No. 34 Lane 62, Chung Cheng Road Taoyuan
16. United Kingdom –   Unit 9, Victoria Industrial Estate, Victoria Road, Acton, W3 6UU
17. Spain – Calle Doctor Cirajas # 12 Planta Calle 28017 Madrid Spain
18. Spain – C/Roure 2-4 Poligono Mas Mateu El Prat De Llobregat, 08829, Barcelona
19. Italy – Via Calatafimi 20, 00185 Rome, Italy
20. Italy – Privata Turro #8, Milan, 20127 Italy

UNITED STATES

1. Donate to Gawad Kalinga U.S.A branch and more http://www.bakitwhy.com/articles/tropical-storm-washi-local-name-bagyong-sendong-devastates-northern-mindanao

2. Donate to PhiDev through online transfer- https://secure3.convio.net/phdev/site/Donation2?df_id=1401&1401.donation=form1&set.SingleDesignee=1881&JServSessionIdr004=z7xs4t1dr3.app332b

MANILA, OTHER PHILIPPINE CITIES

It’s time to display the magnificent show of bayanihan that we all saw during Typhoon Ondoy.

•  Drop off donations at any LBC branch nationwide, it will be delivered to Mindanao for free. More info: https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=2277658913001&set=a.1371322015145.2050590.1594611883&type=1&ref=nf

• Cash donations to Ateneo de Cagayan/ Xavier University

Account Name: Xavier University

Account Number: 9331-0133-63

Bank: Bank of the Philippine Islands, Cagayan de Oro – Divisoria Branch

Those who wish to receive receipts for their donations, may email finance@xu.edu.ph with the details of their donation (donor’s name, receiving branch, date, amount) for proper acknowledgment.)

• Cash donations to La Salle Academy Iligan

(via @DLSUManila) “We would like to request for your assistance in helping our Lasallian brothers and sisters in Iligan who were affected by typhoon “Sendong”. Cash donations may be deposited to La Salle Academy Iligan via Development Bank of the Philippines (DBP) Account No. 0820-016221-030. Kindly inform Lourdes Melegrito of DLSU COSCA the details of your donation at email lourdes.melegrito@dlsu.edu.ph, Tel. No. 524-4611 local 147, or telefax 523-4143. Thank you very much.”

• La Salle Greenhills High School – Bring your donations of used clothes, medicine, food, etc to Gate 2

• ABS-CBN’s Sagip Kapamilya accepts donations in-kind. Drop off for Manila is at Sagip Kapamilya ABS-CBN Foundation. Mother Ignacia cor. Eugenio Lopez, Quezon City. For other cities, more info here:  http://www.twitlonger.com/show/epiivv

• SMART telecom subscribers: Smart Money users can instantly transfer funds through their mobile phones to the official Baha Fund account number 5577 5130 6822 1104.

• Globe Telecom subscribers: Through GCASH, text DONATE and send to 2882.

• Volunteer to repack goods- Volunteers needed to repack goods starting Dec 18 at NROC Chapel Rd, Pasay City, at the back of Air Transportation Office. ( Via @dinkysunflower).

• Potable water fund-  Donate to Rock Ed’s potable water fund for CDO. Details: BPI Loyola Heights 3080-0073-44, Rock Ed Philippines. (http://gangbadoy.tumblr.com/post/14394685310/donate-to-rock-eds-potable-water-fund-for-cdo)
  

DUMAGUETE/BACOLOD :

• Contact Binsoi Rivera : 09175007092

Silliman University, Dumaguete City

• Drop off donations at St . Scholastica Academy Gym, La Salle Avenue, Bacolod.

CAGAYAN DE ORO/ ILIGAN

• Drop by and help relief operations at Xavier University. More info:  http://www.xu.edu.ph/index.php/other-news/642-bagyong-sendong-relief-operations-in-xavier-university

• Send donations to Corpus Christi School, Tomasaco Street, Cagayan de Oro

Contact Harvey Maraguinot : 0917-8888427

• Volunteers are needed at DSWD (Cagayan De Oro). Call 09066150095.

• Send donations to Gawad Kalinga Iligan- GK Missionville, Purok 3, Canaway, Tibanga, Iligan City

Contact Judi Bentoy : 09178888745

• Pass on info about medical assistance:

1. Polymedic Medical Plaza – Free outpatient consultation and tetanus shots at or flood-related injuries. Doc Farina will be there everyday except Dec 20.
2. Macasanding Evacuation Center – Wound dressing on December 19, 2011 ( please get in touch with Bert @ 09264631441)
3. For breastfeeding please contact  Dr. Jessamine Mae C. Sareno  09175014155
4. West City Central School – Free clinic (free medicines and relief goods will be given away. Please contact Dr. Fahad Macadato on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100000210344825)

• Pass on info about Evacuation Centers in Cagayan de Oro City

1. City Central School in Yacapin-Velez Streets
2. West City Central School in Vamenta Blvd, Carmen
3. Macasandig Gym
4. Bulua Gymnasium
5. Xavier University

• Contact the Iligan Bloggers Society:  http://iliganbloggers.com /  iliganbloggers@gmail.com / http://www.facebook.com/iliganbloggers

• Pass on info about free water points in Cagayan de Oro (repost from @cukiebangs) 

1) balulang booster station 

2) production well 3a near Macasandig;

3) COWD Kauswagan Office;

4) Faucet near MUST;

5) some fire hydrants near GSIS Carmen and other areas with BFP coordination

6.) Rainsoft in NHA highway (beside Mazda) is giving free nawasa water.

• (Repost from @JuletteAlon) Google docs for missing persons- For people searching flor lost relatives and friends, this is a form where they can submit the name online, results of which will be shared/forwarded to the search/rescue/retrieval operations team on the ground. https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/viewform?hl=en_US&formkey=dExEVzZ0SlVEZVRWTUxRZGNGbkp5eEE6MQ#gid=0

If you have information on how to help, please message me, I will continue to update this list. Please also feel free to share this on your walls or copy/paste the vital stuff  so we reach more people who can help.

Twitter accounts with on-ground info on what’s needed and how to help: @RockEdIligan, @Mindanaoan

Reality Redux

My summer annual leave will be over in a couple of days and I’ll be flying back to Hong Kong and to work soon. Too tired to talk more of what’s gone down during summer in paragraphs, so salient points for now:

• Seen new places.
• Met up with friends back home.
• Read Richard III in preparation for the production directed by Sam Mendes and led by Kevin Spacey, staged this September at the Hong Kong Academy of Performing Arts as part of the annual Hong Kong Arts Festival, because girl scored tickets.
• Catching up on sleep – in progress

Publication of “Downfall” and Other Matters

First, Happy Independence Day back home in the Philippines!!! As @faithlessphil says, party like it’s 1898! One way of celebrating is enjoying the show at the #RP612fic event currently ongoing at Twitterville. Paolo Chikiamco describes it as the annual celebration of Independence Day through 140-word microfictions, which not only happens on June 12 but “on to June 13 as well, because the 12th is a Sunday, and we all tweet more when there’s work.” A visionary point.

Second, a shout out to my parents’ wedding anniversary today! (Yes, our family has a penchant for hijacking national holidays for our own. My own birthday falls on one of the coolest, most-badass named holidays back home.)

Third, and what has been the cause of much excitement last night, is my short story “Downfall” being published in the June 13 issue of the Philippines Graphic (Vol. 22,  No. 2). It’s already in print and easily available in local bookstores back home. The online version of the issue will be up soon at the site. Much thanks to Joel Pablo Salud and the editors of the Graphic, and thanks to Charles Tan and Kenneth Yu for informing me that the issue’s out already and Charles for sending me scans of the print copy.

I wrote the story about two years ago after listening to Regina Spektor’s beautiful “Samson” (video, lyrics), which opens and closes with “You are my sweetest downfall / I loved you first, I loved you first.”

Philippine Genre Stories: Crime & Philippine Speculative Fiction 6 LAUNCHED

(The last of my backlogged topics to blog about. In celebration of this, I shall henceforth use exclamation marks in flagrant excess.)

May 28, 2011! Fully Booked, Serendra! Two publications I’m in!

Photos: RocketKapre, RocketKapre’s Flickr page, Kyu’s, Eliza’s blog, The World SF News Blog!

Videos: RocketKapre!

Related write-ups: Philippine Online Chronicles, Kyu’s blog, RocketKapre!

Reviews: Jason Lim’s blog (PGS), Philippine Online Chronicles: Metakritiko (PGS), EK’s blog (PSF6)!

(With corresponding Twitter feeds or blogs or Wikipedia pages or, as last resort, Facebook profiles!) PGS Publisher: Kenneth Yu (a.k.a Kyu)! Editor: F.H. Batacan! Contributors: Xin Mei, Maryanne Moll, Dominique Cimafranca, Me, Alexander Osias!

PSF6 Publisher: Dean Alfar! Editors: Nikki Alfar & Kate Aton-Osias! Contributors: Ian Rosales Casocot, Eliza Victoria, Andrew Drilon, Arlynn Despi, John Phillip Corpuz, Vincent Michael Simbulan, Francis Gabriel Concepcion, Jay Steven Anyong, Alexander Osias, Charles Tan,  Maria Elena Paterno, Dean Alfar, Kenneth Yu (a.k.a. Kyu), Elyss Punsalan, Christine V. Lao, Joseph Anthony Montecillo, Me, Maria Pia V. Benosa, Andrei Tupaz, Victor Fernando R. Ocampo, Paolo Chikiamco, Asterio Enrico N. Gutierrez!

PSF7 Submission Guidelines!

(And I am done shouting. There is simply too much drama. In researching for this post, I ran into a malicious Java applet, which my antivirus promptly quarantined, and nearly had this post eaten up by WordPress.)

(Photo by Kyu, uploaded by Charles)

Log

I make it a rule never to bring work back to the flat, and at the same time I hate leaving unfinished work in the office. When I do, it plagues me all the way home till the next morning because I know how absent-minded I can be, so I have to keep reminding myself to finish it. (Usual scenario: I write a note to myself as a reminder. I lose that note.)

So I do end up finishing a piece of work a nice comfortable distance from the deadline and have sorta ended up with a reputation of being pretty “early”.

(Usual scenario at work starts.)

Senior: Have you started preparing for….etc.?

Me: Uh yeah, I finished it a few days ago.

Senior: Great. Can you furnish me with a copy?

Me: Sure, of course. It’s here somewhere…(*rummage rummage*) Geez, where did I put it? Just give me a minute…

(Usual scenario at work ends.)

(I have found all my work so far, I really did just need a minute. And my senior does the same rummaging movements as well sometimes. XDD)

Still far from what we call an OC, though, which is short for obsessive-compulsive. (A friend of mine had explained, back in 2001 when the term was born, that you’re OC if you go to bed and your door is slightly ajar and a thin ray of light is seeping through and you simply cannot go to sleep without closing the door first.)

(Since I left Manila, I’ve met up with some pretty hardcore OCs who make me look like an absolute, sloppy slacker. I met one in Beijing, two in Sydney, and one in Hong Kong. It’s a pity that it’s a slang term only in the Philippines; tsk, missed all the fun provided by an accusation of OCness.)

I knew plenty of OCs back home though.  One of them was in the same course as I was in UP and we had some classes together, though we majored in different areas. Prime specimen of OC, she was.

Anyone who’s ever been a student in UP knows what kind of hell semester enrollment is. (A friend of mine used to have nightmares about it before the event.) I bumped into my OC friend when we arrived at Palma Hall (este, AS!) and she pulled out an index card from her handbag and crossed out the first item in her list of things to do: Arrive at 9AM. She didn’t understand the bewildered look on my face.

We used to hand in our papers by stuffing it into the prof’s pigeonhole (this was before the English department stopped this and just left a general dropbox) and she would actually collect everyone’s papers into a pile and insert her own paper right in the middle so it wouldn’t fall off it. And when we had a prof who would rather we slip our papers through the crack of the locked door to his office (in a certain way, it was pretty risky. If you slid your essay with a little too much might, it could skitter across the floor and be wedged under some object that would keep the prof from seeing it), she would wait outside his door until he came back so she could hand it in face to face.

And once, by some extremely fortunate encounter, I discovered that our grades from a History class we had been in had accidentally been overlooked by admin and had not been forwarded by the History department to the Office of Student Records, in typical UP fashion – meaning we were never credited for that class. And because they had forgotten it, they said that I, la student, had to do it myself. (??!! Moving on.) And perhaps because I had a heart of gold or perhaps because I did not have much of a life, I ran around for more than an hour to and fro between the two places and singlehandedly manage to transfer all our grades to the Office by hand. Anyway, I had a Biology (or was it Geology? One of those general ed stuff) class after that, where I told another friend about it and hastily assured him that I had fixed it so it was OK. OC friend was sitting behind us. And he slyly suggested telling OC friend about the mix-up without saying that it had been resolved. I told him to do it because I was a crap liar. XDD Chaos. The commotion she raised.  I had never tried so hard not to laugh in my entire life.

Best of all. Graduation day. Our department head had muddled up the names in the roll, separating the names of those who were graduating without honors and those who were graduating with them (the names were supposed to be called alphabetically without segregation). OC friend was graduating with honors…which means she didn’t get called on the first round. Which she interpreted as not being able to graduate. Which meant she hiked up her gown and started marching toward the podium with a furious look on her face before the dept head started calling out the honor names. XDD My dad got the whole thing on videotape. With a very good angle.

(Lord knows where OC friend is now.)

Geez. Has it already been four years since I got my undergraduate degree?

Long Roads

I used to cycle around Beijing, before my bike was stolen. The city was big enough to accomodate long lengths and fewer dead ends. But the air. The pollution was bad enough when you’re walking around, but when it smacks you with a certain velocity, it’s like swallowing acid. My throat would be itching within minutes of cycling in the roads and I had to slow down once in a while just to breathe. So juggling that and the attempt of suicide that is crossing an intersection (EVERY. SINGLE. TIME.), I tended to wonder why I took joyrides at all. I think it’s just the appeal of the long roads. When I ran out of destinations, I followed random people on their bicycles, which led me to all sorts of different places (I would turn around once they reached home and head off again.)

So two days before the Olympics. Friends tell me the pollution hasn’t improved, the manners are still as bad (once on holiday from Beijing, I dropped by Hong Kong and felt extremely moved because someone had offered a curt “sorry” when he bumped me in the MTR), the traffic is worse, and I’ve seen the attempts for the city’s beautification in the news magazines, which look extremely forced. When the 8th starts, it’s either going to squeak by or flop magnificently. Either way, there’s going to be plenty to watch.

Oh yeah, I’m in Manila at the moment.

Eat, Drink, Be Merry

This summer will prove to be an eclectic one. Mid-July, Jane, whom I haven’t seen for 2 years, is coming from BJ to HK for a month to visit me (and this I only found out today). Get ready to behold an insanity that can only be borne from a friendship forged in the sulfurs of Beijing. Then end of July, going home to Manila and will meet the usual culprits (Karen + Steph, check; Ressie + gang, check; Jo + gang, check; Jason + Charlene + whoever’s free, check…Tin’s the only one left I need to advance-book with). Mid-August I’m planning to hie off to the Czech Republic and Hungary, where I’ll be crashing at Gyongyi’s place (hope I get the visa). Then by  the end of August I’ll be back for my new job.

Why all this hedonism? Because these two months are going to be the last summer holidays I’m going to get for the next two years; my new teaching job doesn’t give extended vacations. Just the usual work calendar and annual leave. My Mardi Gras before Lent, if you will. If I don’t enjoy them now, I’ll have two years to regret it.

So enjoy, enjoy, enjoy! And on top of that I have been requested to write a story for PGS‘s crime issue, and to write that play Haruka (no, wait, Mrs. Ashida-Ostley!) wants to direct for her theatre group in Hong Kong (“Wendy” in lights in the Fringe Club…well, one can always hope. Rather desperately. Esperanzaaaaaaaa.)

I don’t think I have even been so decided to enjoy something that hasn’t even happened yet. Carpe that diem over there and all that. It’s nearly hysterical.

Stuff

A plug for my friend Bernadette, who has opened her own clothing line: Chris&Berns.

I’m in Manila for CNY, though work will be on again next week and I’ll be flying to HK again soon. Going to meet some friends today and tomorrow. And I might be meeting up with Matt when I go back to HK, if he’s not too busy with the chicks, he said. :p Some things never change.
I’ve been catching up on a lot of reading and refusing to dwell too much on the thought of returning to work in a few days (and what comes after that). While in Boracay with my family I finished Mark Haddon’s A Spot of Bother, a light bit of fun and romp through the mind of man trying to go insane politely, and yesterday Bernard Malamud‘s Pictures of Fidelman, which gave me a fiction idea bunny I’m going to try my hand on when I get back to my laptop. Reading bits of Dorothy Parker and Isaac Bashevis Singer last night and today.

Memories

Teaching in high school does throw one back to memories of high school. I was just thinking particularly about my own time during CAT (for the uninitiated, Citizen Army Training that was mandatory for all seniors in high school in the Philippines, male or female – the only way you could get out of it was to be chronically sick, be a member of the choir, be a member of the scout clubs, be one of those math people who did training for school contests, or have citizenship abroad).

It sounds a lot more impressive than what it really was. It was just weekly training for a year, marching in platoons, carrying rifles, recognizing basic military commands, shining combat boots and brass belt buckles, doing push-ups eighteen-sir-nineteen-sir-twenty-sir-permission-to-faint-now-sir, and sir, I can’t stand to attention properly if the major keeps poking me on the ribs for fun, and all that fluff of saluting and yelling and inspection. We never had to sleep in barracks or fire a shot, but you could have taken an M16 apart and we could have identified each piece for you and chant all the names of the officers of the entire commanding body in rank of order.

It was ridiculous drudgery having to wake up early on Saturday morning and lace up your boots and think that we were all playing soldier, really, for a mark on the report card under “Extracurricular Activity.” Our high school doesn’t have the CAT program now; too many parents had complained. But in some small way, I actually had enjoyed a bit of it. For one, I think that was the point in my life when I was the healthiest and the most physically fit, ever, and that’s always a nice feeling. And perhaps because I had friends in high places; quite a number of my friends had gone the previous summer to train as officers while I went holidaying with my family and was stuck being a basic cadette the following school year. Not that I had an easier time with the commanding officers, but it’s nice when they don’t suspect the worst about you all the time because they know you can follow in step. And also because despite the seeming pointlessness of the matter, it was still nice to see platoons moving in such an orderly and disciplined fashion, rifles going up all at the same time with accompanying thud of guns on shoulders, and heavy boots spacing out simultaneously when everyone’s ordered to stand at ease. I think it’s just brought about by me being a teacher and having to exercise my own authority in disciplining my students. I was having dinner with a colleague some months ago and she was saying that our students could really use a bit of boot camp treatment because they can be such softies, with which I agree. You cannot help but appreciate clear, ordered discipline when you’re a teacher. It’s funny, when I was having a rough spot with some of my students during the earlier part of term, the one helping me deal with it was a friend of mine who had been the CAT corps commander of her year in high school, and being corps-comm is so not funny.

I remember when the reserve officers from the army would come to inspect us. Hilarious event in which it would be our commanding officers’ turn to be under fire and spit. Of course we lowly cadets would be ordered to turn our backs, but we could so hear all the yelling on the other side of the field. And it took so long too.

In any case, still, silly nostalgic memories that’s fun to look back upon. Our CAT year in high school was the same year when former Pres. Estrada was impeached and current Pres. Arroyo came in, and this had happened exactly when my friends and I were having lunch just after CAT, and one of them announced, “Ladies, we have just had a change in our commander-in-chief.” Geez. Has it already been that long?

Wow. Seems only yesterday when my own English teacher in high school was a reserve officer in the army.

Story Online

Ian Casocot has posted online the full text of my Palanca story, “Benito Salazar’s Last Creation,” in the Literatura 13: The Palanca 2007 Issue, as part of the Literatura series. Thanks, Ian!