Help Typhoon Haiyan Victims

Hey folks, been quite busy lately. Between school and other priorities, it's been a full week for me. Things got worse when the Typhoon Haiyan came to Philippines days ago.

Believe me when I say our country is somewhere beneath that cottony thing

Just to clear things up, I'm not a victim of the calamity, thank you to those who emailed me asking for our situation, but we're OK. We live in the northern part of Mindanao and fortunately we only got a cloudy day with scattered rain showers, no floods and no causes for alarm. However our fellow Filipinos living in the Visayas region were greatly affected by the storm, right after an earthquake from weeks ago, and it is enough to bring down our morale. After all, our city had our share with such disaster when Tropical Storm Washi in 2011. We saw how hard it is with no water or electricity, cleaning the roads and the debris, and the bodies. Dead bodies floating everywhere, shortage of caskets, it was chaotic while it lasted.

Seeing a similar event (and unfortunately worse) happening to Leyte and other areas of concern, is really depressing to tell you the truth. There were reports of looting in malls, hijacking trucks containing relief goods, food shortage and even the communication lines are so dead. If you happened to see footages of field reporters going around the place, try to observe the surroundings. If there's one thing you need to know about Philippine roads, most especially in the provinces, is that we are tropical through and through, literally forests everywhere, even among the smaller barangays or smaller cities. But when you look back at the videos, you could only see pathetic tree branches and the wide cloudy sky instead of green leafy umbrellas. That is the extent of this disaster, changing their homes to something unidentifiable.

But since our own city managed to survive and got back on its feet, I believe it could also be possible for them too. Any kind of help will be very much appreciated as we couldn't do this alone.

How to Take Action and help he victims attain safe water, food, shelter, hygiene supplies, medications and other basic needs.

• Philippine Red Cross- These guys had been a huge help, rest assured your donations are wisely used for the victims. Choose a campaign (Haiyan and Central Visayan Earthquake are equally important) and choose your method of payment.
• ABS-CBN Tulong Na
• Kapuso Foundation Operation Bayanihan
• Gawad Kalinga Operation Walang Iwanan
• World Food Programme
• UNICEF Philippines
• Philippine Government

For Filipinos hoping to donate through mobile text, subscribers can follow these steps:
SMS-Text RED<space>AMOUNT to 2899 (Globe) or 4143 (Smart)
G-Cash- Text DONATE<space>AMOUNT<space>4-digit M-PIN<space>REDCROSS to 2882
You can donate the following denominations:
Globe: 5, 25, 100, 300, 500 or 1000
Smart: 10, 25, 50, 100, 300, 500 or 1000