San Jose, Camarines Sur

Sunday, February 4, 2007

The Bicol Regions of Camarines Sur, Catanduanes, Albay and Sorsogon were hit with a 1-2-3-4-5 punch of Typhoon Milenyo (Sept 27, 2006), relocation due to Mayon eruption, Typhoon Reming (Nov. 30, 2006), Seniang (December 7-12, 2006), and the Mayon landslide. The needs were great and FTH tried to put together 3 teams and CFO had 2 teams to meet the challenge. This is the 9th leg of a 10-town tour of FtH in the Bicol Region.

Sunday, February 4, 2007- We left Baao, Albay around 6:00AM for the 2 hour ride to San Jose, Camarines Sur. In San Jose, we were treated to breakfast by Vic and his wife, Doddie O., who went with us to Virac. Vic is a gentlemen farmer and he showed us his collection of healthy home grown vegetables. His love of animals is shown in the 4 championship game cocks he brought back from Virac, very expensive KFC chicken at P10, 000 each. We met with Ms. Obias, the mother of Vic and Maricoy, a retired IMF employee and former FtH Board member and treasurer. Maricoy’s sister, Dulce, from Great Falls, Virginia very actively solicited donations for the Bicol victims from her friends. Maricoy donated a classroom to Kinalansan High School and the other classroom was donated by Mr. & Ms. Martin Gaw, formerly of Alexandria, VA but are now living in Manila.

We did the relief giving to 200 families in San Jose in the church courtyard. I recognized from an old picture that it was the same site where they did a gift giving in 2003. We did a program inside the church and then distributed the gifts outside. Some of the recipients were from out of town and Vic even provided them with transportation money. Vic also added 10 kilos of rice on each gift bags. The bags were too heavy but the typhoon victims were very happy carrying away the bags.

After the gift giving, we visited the school site for the 2 classrooms to be built at Kinalansan High School. The old building was blown down by the typhoon and the school started clearing the site for the new classrooms. We saw a tent that served as a temporary classroom.

We were treated again by Vic to a sumptuous lunch and after a while; we headed to our last mission in Pasacao, Camarines Sur.

NOTES:

The preparation done by the CFO staff in coordinating the procurement and packing of the gifts, arrangement for the hotels and transportation for the volunteers, scheduling the gift giving with the local government units (LGU) and non-government officials (NGO) is incredible! And the bits and pieces of the puzzle all fall into its places. There were some delays and breakdowns but all were manageable and we were able to carry out the missions.

It was a fun trip of nine days. After 2 bottles of Robitussin DM, 30 capsules of anti-biotic provided by Nurse Malu in Bulan, a bottle of Listerine to gargle my sore throat, living in a hand carry luggage and a back pack of video camera, flashlight, camera, bottled water and TP; using one shoes and a pair of slippers; sleeping in 6 hotels with somebody snoring like me and me coughing all the time; practicing my ballrooms moves in 2 nights and after one breakfast; having a night swim in a hot spring in Irosin; having my $50 shoes repaired expertly by a child labor for $1 using his agile hands and crude tools; seeing the smiles of about 2,400 recipients having Christmas gifts in January; being able to locate the sites of eight (8) classrooms to be donated through FtH, I will do it again for FEED THE HUNGRY and the poor people of Bicol. If there’s a will, HE will show the way!

Pablito, Wednesday, February 28, 2007, at CFO.