Update on the Blue Eagles
A multi-sectoral meeting was hosted by Fr. Ben Nebres, S.J. the other night to take up urgent matters on immediate relief activities and the more long-term reconstruction phase of the devasted communities. Using the GK infrastructure and programs, various partners decided to unify relief efforts and together support the rebuilding of affected communities. The present partners are of the project which will be known as Kalinga Luzon are Ateneo University, ABS-CBN, DSWD, NDCC, HUDCC, and CFC. GK has also been blessed with the strong personal support of Cito Lorenzo, son of Ateneo Hall of Famer, Moro Lorenzo, who has been a GK advocate for some time and now a national adviser of the GK movement. Cito sparked the drive for the reconstruction phase by donating 100 house from his personal funds, a move which quickly spurred Ateneo University to take on the rehabilitation of Gabaldon (Nueva Ecija) and SMART pledging to be the major sponsor of Gen. Nakar's (Quezon) rehabilitation.
The multi-sectoral partner for reconstruction will be adopting the Gawad Kalinga program for community rebuilding. It appears that GK is the only organization that has a full-fledged community reconstruction program, bar none. It has a history of rebuilding lives and communities which began when it worked with displaced families from the Ormoc flood disaster. It moved on to build a new community for fire victims in Iligan City and Arkong Bato in Pasig City, several new communities for war victims in Sultan Kudarat and Maguindanao (Tacurong, Datu Paglas, Buluan, and S,K,Pendatun), new communities for landslide victims in Lilo-an and San Ricardo, Southern Leyte, a huge effort in a new community in BASECO, Tondo, Manila, for fire victims. More than 1,200 new decent homes in peaceful and beautiful communities are the tangible and visible results of GK's rehab/reconstruction program.
The GK program, though, does not stop at building new homes in new communities. It initially involves a stress debriefing phase where traumatized victims of calamities are gently processed to transcend the horror of their experience, the pain of losing loved ones, and to channel their energies to the building of new relationships in new communities in a new life.
DSWD informed the group that their estimate of destroyed homes of poor Filipinos is already between 22,000 - 25,000. These include thousands from a few towns in Mindoro which were devastated by a tornado triggered by Typhoon Unding about a week before Typhoon Winnie and Typhoon Yoyong. The initial target towns for rehab/reconstruction are Infanta, Real, Gen. Nakar of Quezon province, Dingalan of Aurora province, Gabaldon of Nueva Ecija, Roxas a neighboring town in Oriental Mindoro. A massive drive for fellow Filipinos here and abroad will be launched in order to address the short-term need for relief and the medium-term program of reconstruction. Public and private efforts will be combined and will converge in the GK program.
Our fellow Filipinos whose lives and homes have been devastated by the series of typhoons ask for your empathy, your sympathy, your generosity and your prayers. GK volunteers will man the front lines until others will join the unified effort with their hearts and warm bodies. I thank you in advance for your concern and hope you will participate in the rebuilding of communities and the rebuilding of our nation.
Boy Montelibano