Catbalogan, Samar

Feed the Hungry volunteers Percy and Pepito S., Pablito and Tess, Fely and Manny D. and their niece Gloria F. from Las Vegas met at Terminal 2 of the airport at 6:30 AM, Feb 18, 2010 for the 8:50 AM flight to Tacloban, Leyte. From the airport, we hired a van to take us to our hotel in downtown Tacloban. We had lunch at Chow King, toured a couple of sites around Tacloban and retired for the early trip the following day. We spent Friday, Feb 19, visiting the water system in Brgy Pagmisian, Bontoc and the classrooms in Maasin, Southern Leyte. Saturday morning, Feb 20, we checked out of our hotel in Tacloban and boarded a van arranged by Betty L. for the trip to Catbalogan, Samar.

We crossed the beautiful San Juanico Bridge, connecting Leyte and Samar. Last time I was in this area was in 1962, in a Bureau of Coast and Geodetic Survey ship, navigating the San Juanico Strait, under the bridge. The small huts/stores near the pier in 1962 are now a BIG MacDonald restaurant. At that time in 1962, McDo is not yet in my vocabulary.

We checked in at Fortune Hotel in downtown Catbalogan and right across our hotel is a banner announcing the FtH mission. The venue is in the St Mary's College, next to the church, about a block away from our hotel. We had breakfast in Jollibee, about 2 blocks away, and took a walking tour around the market, plaza, and church to get familiar with Catbalogan.

Sunday, February 28, 2010, we took a walk in the opposite direction and reach the pier about 2 blocks away. We saw the fresh catch of the day, shrimps, they're big, lots of them. We had breakfast at Jollibee again; hear the mass and then the gift giving at 10AM.

Our partners in this gift giving are the Ladies of Charities of Catbalogan. They selected the 500 indigent recipients, purchased the gifts, prepared the individual packages and issued the claim tickets to the recipients. We also have the assistance of ALERT, a local organization to help with crowd control. Pepito introduced FtH, mentioned that the funds are coming from donors from Metro WashDC and the distribution began with Tess collecting the tickets, Gloria handling the gifts and the rest of FtH volunteers assisting. The recipients were grouped in 10 to avoid overcrowding. After the gift giving, Betty treated the volunteers to lunch and we then visited a Monsignor whose house on top of the hill provided a panoramic view of Catbalogan City and Samar Bay.

We also visited the on-going medical mission by the PMAA of New York, under Dr. Prospero Lim and Evan and Dra. Prado. The mission is for 3 days and they expect to treat about 8,000 patients, with free medicines. We met Dr Lim in NY last November 2009. Dr Lim donated $500 to FtH to cover the cost of shipping 23 boxes of books to Catbalogan.

We were invited for dinner at the LIM CLAN REUNION held at the Samar School gymnasium. We arrived while Dr. Prospero Lim of NY was addressing the rest of the Lims. The first clan reunion I attended was about a week ago with the JOYA Clan Reunion in Gen. Trias Convention Center in Cavite, attended by about a 1,000 of the Joya Families. When we were about to leave, Betty was requested and she did a very graceful rendition of the “Kuracha” a money-dance tradition where people throw money on a table cloth on the floor to keep Betty dancing. Then, local dance instructors partnered with Betty, Tess and Percy for a cha-cha number and then we said good night to all.

Monday, Feb 22, 2010, about 9:00 AM, we left Catbalogan for the shuttle to Tacloban Airport for our flight back to Manila. The original 2PM flight was moved to 5:00 PM. We had plenty of time so we dropped by the Dept. of Health Processing Plant, just after the San Juanico Bridge, where Pito and Fely bought some Lagundi Plant and Lagundi and Sambong tablets, Bayabas soap and toured the plant. The Philippine Airlines came and left on time. We were home by 8PM after a successful 3-FtH mission trip to Leyte and Samar.