Quick Relief To 448 Storm-hit Informal Settlers

It's been  6 mos before this update about the status on the typhoon damaged areas in Brgys. Tatalon and Talayan,  sub-urban areas just at the  outskirts of Quezon City, a premier city capital of Metro Manila. Food, Water and medicines have alleviated much the sufferings of urban informal settlers.  Quite hard is support to come up with new housing materials ( galvanized iron sheets, a few lumber and plywood) to fix some house portions or a large part of it.

To date, as shown in some representative pictures, the houses are build from remant planks, surviving plywoods and galvanized sheets structured unevenly just to from a shelter which is better at warding off some heat and rain.  Though since December  2025 an intense heat with temperatures reaching 40-45 degrees sweeped across the Philippines, the makeshift houses are relief sheds to get by.

The intermittent rain this June is signalling the onset of the rains.  The first of a seriess of storms called Ester  hit the country this June but thankfully bearable and has not caused any significant damage.  As the Philippines will be hit by 20 + typhoons annually, we are more concerned aside from the wreck that anomalous flood control projects  that are either substandards or unfinished.  This means that communities will be highly vulnerable as with last year with these preventive structures not completed or are ghosts projects (non-existent).

We hope the country will be spared from these virulent storms as recovery of destroyed homes, properties are very slow  due to scarcity of support funds and even materials for construction.  With this we continue to secure some assistance with these communities for them to be able to have some relief from the disaster as they go daily for survival. 

At this point, your support could provide assistance for trainings and disaster preparedness orientation as we gear towards the rainy season.  This way, at least the communities can take some measures to minimize their vulnerabilities and severe impact in terms of lack of food, clothing, shelter and health interventions. 

We may not be able to prevent the force of nature such as storms to impact adversely the vulnerable communities, but at least  these disaster preparedness activities can help a lot  despite.  So we thank you for continually supporting these efforts and we highly appreciate the difference no matter how small these may be to help them get by despite the huge gap of support needed.

Thank you very much!  

It's a given that the Philippines will have 20 typhoons every year.  Just as the communities are reeling off from the previous storms, two strong typhoons hit the country close to each other. The first is Tino followed by Uwan that hit the country this November.  Prior to this the country is mourning the damage wrought by a 6.9 magnitude earthquake that hit midnorth Cebu  ( a Visayan Island) in Central Philippines with enourmous damage and casualties. 

It seems 2025 is like a disaster year for the Philippnes and  both urban and rural communities suffered flooding, strong winds and incessant rains.  For communities, these doubled hardships. Just as they started to gather whatever is left, new storm disasters hit one after the other.  Damage to life and property are unforgiving and coping up is a frenzy of getting by with whatever assistance we could gather.   

Your contributions are of big help directed to short term quick relief.  The relief goods are palliative measures that could tied up communities while they are rebuilding things. They are much better than nothing at all.  There are government aids but  for long term purposes, these are not adequate. Just like during typhoon Hyan in 2013, they need to build back better and housing materials could be costly and hard to come by.  A programatic approach for disaser resiliency and  preparation focused on stop gap measures with no strategic perspectives  is all that is laid.  These are largely dependent on packed relief goods enough for a few days.  

What compounded the recent diffficulties is the discovery of highly corrupted and anomalous flood control projects  by contractors.  There are ghost projects reported completed but are non -existent, dikes of low quality that a moderate flood current could easily wash these away.  The Philippines has never experienced these massive flooding until this time.  It's thought of that these  anomalies have long been happening, good the severe flooding all over the Philippines have unearthed corrupt practices connived by politicians, contractors and agencies and people are protesting and demanding accountabilities and jailing the culprits.  Massive street protests are happening all over the country for justice to the victims and for tax paying Filipinos robbed of their hard earned money. 

Hence, we continue to hope for your assistance for us to continue helping distressed families. We look forward towards this last quarter for a storm-free days so that families could stand up again.  Reconstruction work still continues.  Communities used to the storm take this as just as one of those events that they have to face year after year.  We appeal for your help along this as we grapple for a more robust disaster preparedness measures and programs.  Before that happens, please help us mitigate the impact.  Small amounts is good for a bottle of  water, a kilo of rice and sardines, medicines and some housing materials. One rebuilding at a time and we are thankful you are with us in this.  God bless your generousity!