Hundreds Feared Dead in Philippines

A passenger ferry, MV Princess of the Stars, capsized off the central Philippine island of Sibuyan.
MANILA, Philippines: June 23rd. (NY TIMES) — The death toll from the powerful typhoon that killed more than 100 people in the Philippines last weekend could rise sharply after a ferry carrying more than 700 passengers and crew members capsized in the central part of the island chain , officials said.

The Red Cross reported that at least 137 people had been killed in the hurricane, not including those confirmed dead after the ferry sinking. Glenn Rabonza, executive director of the National Disaster Coordinating Council, said casualty figures were difficult to confirm because of extremely bad weather that was hampering search and recovery operations. On Sunday, the coast guard said it had reached the spot near the island of Sibuyan where the passenger ferry, the Princess of the Stars, had capsized a day earlier.

Officials said they found no survivors apart from four passengers rescued earlier in the day. Officials said the bodies of four passengers had also been recovered earlier in the day. Nanette Tansingco, mayor of San Fernando, Sibuyan’s largest town, told DZMM radio on Sunday that witnesses had described “the boat upside down with a big hole in the hull.” She said island villagers had reported seeing slippers and other belongings washing ashore, and other witnesses offered similar accounts. One of the survivors, Jesus Gica, told a radio station that he saw passengers losing consciousness and children unable to wear their life vests. “Many of us jumped from the ship,” he said. “The waves were big.” He also said elderly people, unable to escape, had been trapped underneath the sunken ferry.

Dozens of relatives of the passengers went to the ferry company’s office in Manila, demanding to know what happened to their loved ones. “I’m very worried,” Felino Farionin told The Associated Press. “I need to know what happened to my family.” He said his wife, son and in-laws were on the ferry. According to the government, the ferry was carrying 702 passengers, 45 of them children and infants, and 121 crew members.

The typhoon, Fengshen, made landfall on Saturday and battered several provinces. Its wind and rain knocked down power lines in the capital and elsewhere, caused landslides and capsized small boats. Fengshen, its winds at more than 90 miles per hour, caused more destruction in the northern Philippines but was headed out of the country on Sunday afternoon, weather officials said. The bad weather hampered efforts to locate the Princess of the Stars and its passengers, coast guard officials said. “They haven’t seen anyone,” Lt. Senior Grade Arman Balilo, a spokesman for the coast guard, told The Associated Press. “They’re scouring the area. They’re studying the direction of the waves to determine where survivors may have drifted.” Officials were checking reports that some people reached a nearby island and that a raft was spotted off another, said a coast guard spokesman, Cmdr. Antonio Cuasito, The Associated Press reported. “We can only pray that there are many survivors so we can reduce the number of casualties,” he said.

President Gloria Arroyo, who is in the United States for a state visit, scolded coast guard officials during a teleconference on Sunday for allowing the ferry to sail despite warnings about the typhoon. She ordered government agencies to coordinate rescue and relief efforts. The coast guard said the Princess of the Stars was allowed to leave Manila on Friday evening for Cebu, a city in the central Philippines, because the storm had not yet made landfall. Coast guard officials said the ferry should have been big enough to sail and that a warning issued earlier on Saturday barred only small boats from traveling. In Iloilo Province, in the central Philippines, the governor, Neil Tupaz, reported that 59 people had died and that more than two dozen others were missing. “Iloilo is like an ocean,” Mr. Tupaz said in a radio interview. Officials said tens of thousands of displaced residents were moved to evacuation centers. Flights were canceled and Monday classes suspended. Each year, about 20 typhoons slam into the Philippines, an archipelago bordering the Pacitic in the path of the storm systems.
By CARLOS CONDE
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Child Sexual Abuse in the Philippines

OLANGAPO CITY, Philippines, Feb. 22 nd, (ICN) - Anna Maria aged 15, is recovering at the Preda Centre. She goes to school and loves to learn. She travels to school with 35 other children who are also recovering and overcoming the trauma of abuse. Given care, affirmation support and good therapy, victims are not damaged forever. They can recover and make a success of life. That is the goal of the Childhood for Children Life Recovery Programme. There are 53 children recovering in Preda at present, not all are ready for school. Arriving from school on the Preda bus, they are laughing, boisterous and full of life, simply happy. They have a meeting on their return to Preda and tell about their experience at school. The staff members listen and help them deal with any school problems. It is so important to listen to children. After the meeting and story telling, they all go to wash up and have a shower and change clothes. They come together for a meal. A buzz of noisy conversation and chatting fills the room. Some of the girls are assigned to wash the dishes, others clean the dining room and sweep the floor. The Preda social worker helps and encourages them. teaching by example. Others are allowed to watch a serial story on TV for 40 minutes. Only positive inspirational and education programmes are viewed.

Then it,s time for homework. Some of the children work on the computers. A teacher arrives in the study hall and Anna Maria is always eager to do the home work. The children know that education is the only way out of the pit of poverty. After doing their homework, the children have evening prayer and a reading from the gospel. Through the Gospel, the children learn that every individual is important, precious and valuable, and has rights as a member of the Family of God, as a human person and especially as a child. It is not only the group that is important, but each individual. Taken for granted today, it was a revolutionaryidea 2000 years ago. An individual can never be sacrificed for the sake of group or family interest. This is a typical day in the life of Anna Maria. She is happy and laughing and doing well in school. But when she first came to Preda, she was depressed, suicidal and filled with fear and anxiety. She was alone and lost, far from her parents and home. She was a victim of forced child prostitution.

It all began when she was taken out of school at 14 by her impoverished parents to work as a domestic helper in the city to send money home. They did not know that the owner, Dom Pedro, was a member of the political elite and a wealthy sex club owner. She washed and cleaned in his sumptuous private mansion. Anna Maria never received any payment and was not allowed to leave the compound. There was no escape. One night, Anna Maria was set upon by the 20 year old son of her employer. A week later she was taken out to his friends and they abused her too. Soon after she was brought to the sex club and made work serving drinks in the club. A foreign sex tourist fancied her, paid the manager and dragged her to a back room where she was sexually abused again and again. She was traumatised, shocked and crying. In desperation, she climbed out a toilet window and ran away. A good hearted woman vendor in the market heard her story and immediately sent a text message to Preda. She was a member of the "defenders of children, a group trained by the Preda Community Education Team to report child abuse. Within twenty minutes, the Preda child rescue team van arrived and Anna Maria was saved. She is now a strong minded young lady and empowered to testify against her abuser.

It is only a government that is corruption free and cares for the dignity of women and children that will close the sex industry and stop supporting it. They can do it, with political will, and by canceling the operating licenses and permits. That will save thousands of children like Anna Maria. It can,t come soon enough.
Contact Fr Shay Cullen at the Preda Centre, Upper Kalaklan, Olongapo City, Philippines. E-mail: preda@info.com.ph
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Disclaimer
No responsibility or liability shall attach itself to either myself or to the blogspot ‘Mozlink’ for any or all of the articles/images placed here. The placing of an article does not necessarily imply that I agree or accept the contents of the article as being necessarily factual in theology, dogma or otherwise.
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