PINOY WORKING IN HAITI FOR 17 YEARS LUCKY; CHURCH LEADERS DEAD, MISSING
DAGUPAN CITY, JANUARY 17, 2010 (STAR) By Eva Visperas – A Filipino executive who has been working in Haiti for 17 years feels lucky to have escaped the killer quake that struck the impoverished nation last Jan. 12.Fifty-year-old Tony Duran, who is assistant president of a Filipino community in Haiti, is grateful for his second life and said he felt lucky to have been spared from the calamitous 7.0 magnitude quake.
“If I was there, I would have been among the casualties as I normally stay along the downtown area at that time when the powerful earthquake shook Haiti,” he said.
Duran is a contractor of construction, electronics and other surveillance materials in Haiti.
He said there was heavy traffic in the downtown area when the earthquake struck. The monstrous traffic snarl is 20 times worse than the one in Metro Manila during rush hour, Duran noted.
Duran, who was president for 10 years of the Filipino community there, said he was deeply worried about the fate of other Filipinos in Haiti.
He said he has been exhausting all efforts to establish contact with their group, which has 240 members.
Duran said he left Haiti last Jan. 8 and arrived on Jan. 12. Immediately, he tried to link with some people in the Department of Foreign Affairs, Camp Aguinaldo, Camp Crame, among others to get news about his fellow Filipinos.
Through a Filipino named Frankie who has satellite Internet, he was able to connect with his Filipino friends.
They told him that they are in dire need of food, water and means of communication.
He said OFWs in Haiti belong to certain regional groups like Ilocanos and Ilonggos, with some members of the same families working there together.
He said Filipinos in Haiti have a good reputation with their employers because of their trustworthiness.
Duran added that while most of the Filipinos staying there are okay and survived the calamity, he urged authorities to conduct a census among OFWs in Haiti to really know their condition.
Church leaders killed in Haiti quake
Meanwhile, a Filipino Archbishop who is assigned as the Papal Nuncio in Haiti said there were Catholic Church leaders who died and remain trapped under the rubble.
In an interview with the Church-run Radio Veritas, Haiti Archbishop Bernardito Auza said that the Catholic Church in Haiti was not spared from the horrific quake. He was very sad about what happened to Haiti and asked for assistance.
Archbishop Auza is the first Filipino Vatican envoy to Haiti.
The Apostolic Nuncio to Port-au-Prince, Haiti said that life was difficult in Haiti because there was no reserve water and gasoline stations were closed. They also had to transfer the operations of the Catholic Relief Service.
He also reported that several Church leaders are either dead or missing.
“Archbishop (Serge) Miot, the good and smiling Archbishop of Port-au-Prince, is dead. He was in the balcony of his room waiting for someone to go out for a ceremony when the earthquake hit our country. The force of the tremor toppled the balcony. We do not have electricity and we decided yesterday to transfer his body to St. Mark towards Verso Gonaives,” Archbishop Auza said.
There were also a number of priests and religious who died and were pulled out of buildings. The Vicar General of Port-au-Prince Monsignor Charles Benoit and the Chancellor Father Cherie are under the rubble until this time.
“Another priest Don Chancie is already sacramental dead. Msgr. Benoit is under the rubble at the Archbishop’s palace that has four floors. Last night I went to visit the seminary and it was all destroyed, thanks be to God all the formators were able to go out. But there were three or four seminarians who are lost,” he added.
“The situation is really terrible and we are asking for help. But until this time no help has arrived. The airport is not capable to deliver the help. The people are sleeping in the streets but others go to the mountains for fear of tsunami,” the 50-year-old added.
A Filipina doctor who is currently in Japan for training said her doctor-husband will head the medical team from the Philippines to be sent to Haiti to extend assistance to the quake victims.
Dr. Myrna Torres-Rivera, medical specialist and head of the Hospital Emergency Management Coordination Service (HEMS), said her husband Dr. Arnel Rivera will be the leader of the medical team from the Department of Health (DOH) to be sent to Haiti on Sunday.
Meanwhile, Sen. Edgardo Angara is seeking a disaster management training center so the country can come up with an effective response capability to natural and man-made disasters.
“What we ought to learn from these disasters - recent earthquake, (typhoons) ‘Ondoy’ and ‘Pepeng’ - is that we need to put in place a better disaster prediction and response system,” Angara, co-chairman of the Congressional commission on science and technology and engineering and the Senate committee on science and technology.
Angara has sought the assistance of Hyogo Prefecture in Japan that dealt with the Great Hanshin Awaji earthquake for the establishment of the disaster management training center. It will operate as a model in capacity building and institutional development of local officials, policy makers, professionals and academic organizations and individuals in a multidisciplinary approach to Disaster Risk Management (DRM).
Lakas-Kampi standard bearer Gilbert Teodoro said three more members of the UN peacekeeping team are missing.
“Three of them are still missing and we pray that they are safe,” said Teodoro.
The 10th RP contingent composed of 155 men and women of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) was dispatched to Haiti for peacekeeping operations in August last year. – With Cecille Suerte Felipe, Evelyn Macairan and Jaime Laude.
Chief News Editor: Sol Jose Vanzi
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