‘On Haiyan’s 9th anniversary, I remember Guiuan with the hope that we have all learned from the tragedy that nature had wrought.’
NINE years ago, the bustling town of Guiuan at the southeastern most edge of Eastern Samar province got the shock of its life.
Super Typhoon Haiyan, which we locally called Yolanda, slammed into the town in the wee hours of the morning with winds of over 300kph, the first landfall it made on its path of destruction that would make Tacloban a household name around the world.
But before Tacloban, there was Guiuan. And it was at Guiuan, three days after Haiyan struck, that I came face-to-face with nature’s extreme wrath.
Dispatched by then-Nickel Asia (NAC) board chairman Manny Zamora in a private plane laden with PGH doctors and medicines, I landed at the World War 2 era airstrip in a location that to me seemed like an atomic bomb test area: almost all coconut trees were either just stumps or broken in half with their crowns facing one way, towards Tacloban, it seemed to me. I saw no structure standing that was intact except one barong-barong built between two concrete houses that had lost their roofs. People were milling around the commercial center of the town looking to me like they were in search of food. All around them were twisted GI sheets from torn roofing, collapsed walls and two provincial buses and one gasoline truck lying on their sides.
At what used to be the public market that bordered on the water, there were three red Coke refrigerators lying on their sides amidst other debris from stalls blown away by Haiyan’s might.
I wondered how any community could ever rise from such massive destruction.
Guiuan today is proof that you cannot count the Filipino out. But it is proof that in order to leave behind as little scars as possible a lot of hard work is required. And post-Haiyan it helped that the political leadership of Guiuan, led by its then-Mayor Christopher “Sheen” Gonzales, assisted by his elder sister Annaliza Gonzales (the current mayor), stepped up to the plate.
It also helped that we had a Typhoon Yolanda czar in Panfilo Lacson to help coordinate efforts to get Eastern Visayas back on its feet.
I am also proud that NAC contributed as well, providing concrete and wooden housing for over 500 families on the island of Manicani — irrespective of whether the family-beneficiary was pro or anti-mining. (A NAC subsidiary, Hinatuan Mining, oversees a nickel mining MPSA on the island).
For over a year after Haiyan struck, I was a regular visitor to Guiuan (and Manicani) and saw it rise from near total destruction. That’s what helps me look back with less sadness and despair on what nature had wrought on that LGU I had never heard of ever in my life until November 10, 2013, when I was told that I needed to find doctors and fly there to provide whatever help we could.
On Haiyan’s 9th anniversary, I remember Guiuan with the hope that we have all learned from the tragedy that nature had wrought.
