Typhoon Ondoy Aftermath.

* scroll down to the 2 earlier posts for photos and details.

So everybody is still stunned on what happened during the weekends. Us Filipinos are still in shock and are still trying to recover from the devastating typhoon that hit us. Everyone wants to help and reach out to those who were badly affected and in serious need of rescuing, shelter, food, clothing, and medicines. My Twitter and Facebook are still flooded with updates on hotline numbers, donation drop-off locations and other details on how to volunteer in the relief operations of the typhoon's victims and for the first time... I don't care about my timeline and my wall being flooded with numerous re-tweets and re-posts of "help" and "donation" messages. The more people re-tweet and re-post, the more people we can ask for help, the more people can actually help us.

I was watching the news earlier and I was teary-eyed all throughout. Dead bodies were being carried out of the muddy water that they were trapped in. Children feeling helpless. Parents mourning over the loss of their children. Years of hard earned hundreds of millions worth of properties (furnitures, cars, houses, etc.) all trashed and ruined just within 24 hours. It was... heartbreaking. I cannot even find the right adjective to describe the feeling that I had while watching the news.

But amidst the calamity that our country suffered, our spirit is still intact. We are still hopeful that we can all get through this as one and we with our bayanihan spirit are now united to give help to those in need. Every Filipino, mostly those who were spared from the flash floods, are now actively volunteering in every relief operations that the country has. There are numerous ways to reach out and extend a hand. We can all donate. One local celebrity posted a compilation for volunteers and donations on her blog. There are also several universities who are also gathering donations and pledges, there is Ateneo de Manila University, De La Salle University, University of Santo Tomas, and other provincial schools. This is nationwide and worldwide. There were Hollywood celebrities and personalities who posted about our situation on Twitter too.


I really, really, really want to go out there and donate. I have never felt this greatly affected towards a tragedy and I want to do something good because I know I can and there are a lot of ways for me to do it. I know some drop-off places are quite far from where I live but McDonald's branches and Petron gas stations are also accepting donations and I can go there instead since there are one or two of those establishements near my place. Hopefully tomorrow or on Wednesday I could go out and buy some food and toiletries to give out. Some of my friends have already gone to the schools and volunteering places mentioned and other have dropped off their donations too. So far, I have only done the Red Cross text donation thing and I am still not contented with it. I can do better than just text and I am going to do it.

If you want to help out too, in-kind or monetary donations of any amount would be greatly appreciated, you could check out Philippine Red Cross or for a more complete list go to Bianca's blog.

Thank you very much!