A visit to Southern Leyte and Tacloban City

It’s three months before the 1st anniversary of the greatest storm that hit planet earth, Super Typhoon “Yolanda” (international code name Haiyan) so I decided to ride with my friends to Leyte over the weekend and attend the fiesta in Maasin and ride our bikes to Tacloban City. Friday dawn, we arrived in Hilongos on board M/V Joyful Stars of Roble Shipping and then we rode our bikes for the short ride to Maasin City.

Friday was the Feast of the Assumption and you could see the tallest Statue of the Blessed Virgin Mary in the hill 104 meters above sea level watching over Maasin City. It is Maasin’s top tourist destination and you have to climb 300 steps to reach to the top. Our sumptuous fresh seafood lunch was in the house of Jerry and Janice Tse, hardware store owners who gave us their story of how the folks from Tacloban City went as far as Maasin just to look for generators to light up their homes. He sold everything that he had. Indeed, Southern Leyte was spared from Typhoon “Yolanda.” We also got a call from Southern Leyte Governor Roger “Oging” Mercado who invited us in his house and we talked about the current political situation especially the proposed extension of President Benigno “P-Noy” Aquino III term. Indeed this issue seems to be the talk of the town and take it from me… no one likes Pres. PNoy messing with the constitution for his selfish designs of extending his term.

From Maasin City, we rode around Southern Leyte, passing by Malitbog, Tomas Oppus, Bontoc and Sogod then to Agas-Agas Bridge, Southern Leyte’s most beautiful bridge right in the middle of a rain forest. The roads were great! We rode from Agas-Agas Bridge to Ormoc City via Mahaplag crossing through the town of Baybay. This road used to be one of the best in Southern Leyte, but now DPWH needs to fix this road.

Early morning in Pongos Hotel in Ormoc City, I met Eddie Codilla, brother of Mayor Elmer Codilla and hotel owner Yong Yong Pongos and a friend and yes they were discussing the same thing about changing the Constitution just to extend the term of Pres. P-Noy Aquino and it is crystal clear that no one amongst Pres. PNoy’s “Bossing’s” likes the cha-cha idea. Pres. PNoy must be hearing something else inside his head!

Our friends in Ormoc City also commented on our article last Saturday about then Chief Justice Hilario Davide Jr. having only a Toyota Camry that glaringly showed the inequality in the supposedly three co-equal branches of the Philippine government. Yes in Ormoc City, they read the Philippine STAR. I should know, our guide for this motorcycle trip is Rey Villamor, who is the dealer for The Freeman and the Philippine STAR there.

Talking about that issue, I also gathered that House Speaker Feliciano “Sonny” Belmonte Jr. doesn’t even have an official car from Congress. His Toyota Land Cruiser comes from the Belmonte Family Holdings. Even his back up vehicles for his security is not government owned. I guess that can only be traced to Speaker Belmonte’s being an Ilocano. But we must right the wrong things in this country and truly create co-equal branches of the government, not just for show but for real.

While Ormoc City has already returned back to normal, the roof of the bus terminal is still missing, while their Cultural Center is still broken and hopefully will be repaired soon. On our way to Tacloban City, we passed by the town of Capoocan and you could see their ruined cemetery destroyed by the storm surge. While most of the downed trees have already been cut and used as lumber, those that survived have new branches sprouting out.

Nine months after Yolanda, it’s easy to spot a house that had its roof blown off. Either those houses are still roofless or they now sport new shiny roofing that glistens under the hot sun. We stopped at the Cathedral in Palo and saw that most of its roof has been restored. Work is done round the clock in order to finish the church in time for the visit of Pope Francis.

We rode to the next town in Tanauan and at a crossroad, there’s a triangle that divides the road going to the town proper. That small patch has become a cemetery. Things got so bad that people just buried the dead at any space available that they could find. Palo Cathedral’s garden became a cemetery, while the frontage of another church in Tanauan became a burial ground. It’s different when you’re riding your motorcycle or an air-conditioned car because you get the wind into your nose and yes, in some places in Tacloban City, you could still smell the stench of death.

Yes those ships are still on the road…but the traffic last Saturday was heavy, which means that Tacloban City is starting to come back. But there is a nagging question that I need to ask =P-Noy…how many people were killed or still missing after Yolanda? I asked this because the NDRRMC reported only 6,340 fatalities with 1,061 missing. But then they were ordered to stop counting the dead? So what’s really the truth here?

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