Pinoys continue to demonstrate ‘kabayanihan’ in Yolanda-hit areas

Long after the national and international spotlight has moved on from the victims and survivors of Typhoon Yolanda, many Filipinos continue to work in less-than-optimal circumstances in typhoon-ravaged areas to help their countrymen and women.

According to a report by Sherrie Ann Torres on "Balitanghali," life is slowly returning to normal in Tacloban City and other parts of Leyte hit by the super typhoon. Businesses have reopened, and many of the foreign and Filipino relief workers who helped the locals out in the first few months since the disaster have returned home.



But the effects of Yolanda continue to be felt and seen, in damaged buildings, homes and schools—where many people and organizations continue their work in the sweltering heat.

In one building, employees of the National Bureau of Investigation, the Department of Health and the Red Cross as well as volunteers continue to obtain DNA samples from dead bodies in the hope of identifying them one day.

According to the report, they have been sleeping on the floor all these months in order to do so.

At the damaged Palo Maternity and Puericulture Center, municipal health workers having been carrying on with the job of bringing new life into the world—73 infants, in fact, since the clinic reopened in January. To this day, the clinic makes do with salvaged materials and medicines and a lone generator. "Nahihiirapan po kami kasi mainit. Naaawa po kami sa mga nanay na bagong panganak, gawa nung walang electric, wala silang air," said midwife-in-charge Teresita Conos.

However, she added, "Lahat po ng kayang gawin namin, gagawin namin, for the sake ng mother and baby."

In Palo I Central School, new kindergarten teacher Joevette Flores said that she is ready to teach her small charges, even in a hot and crowded tent and despite some concerns. "The attention span ng bata, maliit lang. So we really have to give [them] more activities, more instructional materials," she said.

At the University of the Philippines-Visayas, teachers from the UP Manila School of Health Sciences are also getting ready to teach in tents and under beach umbrellas. And in schools throughout the province, said the report, volunteers from the Bureau of Fire Protection are working to clean and equip schools in the last few days before the new schoolyear begins. — BM, GMA News