Helpless, Helpful

When Typhoon Ketsana ("Ondoy") hit Manila last September 26th, for 2 seconds, I felt so helpless in my tiny New York apartment. All my discontent (large and small) about living in this city quickly melted away. Here I am, safe and warm with a roof on top of my head, and food in the fridge. Hell, I even have a working cellphone to call delivery.

Meanwhile, my fellowmen are barely making it through the catastrophe that is Ondoy. Some areas in Manila were over 10 feet buried in water. Thousands of houses were destroyed. There was no electricity, no clean water, no dry roads and there were about 300 casualties. It was so disheartening seeing the places I've been, and the city where I grew up, immediately drowning underwater. There were thousands of Filipinos trying to reach the nearest relief center - if there even is one nearby. The government? Forget it. It was the private sector who did most of the work. True colors.

I wanted to be there and help. I wanted to pack up groceries or donate or swim through the baha to save people from drowning. But I couldn't. (Luckily, everybody in my family was safe, and our house was not damaged at all - we lived on a hill!)

Thankfully, I wasn't alone in feeling this way. A glimmer of hope came when a few, no, plenty of fellow Filipinos who reside in NYC stepped up and offered to help. We were all over Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, different websites and newsgroups. We pooled together, shared sad stories, talked about volunteering and our willingness to help. After several discussions, we decided to do a happy hour fundraiser - here in New York. $20 donation. Getting people to drink together is easy enough, right?

$20 sounds high to some people, but that's the average cost of one lunch here (with drink). That's just cover charge to get into a trendy club here. That same $20 is perhaps 2 week's worth of groceries a family in the Philippines.

With a little help from our friends, and friends of our friends... we were able to generate almost $4,000 in donations for the typhoon victims. That is an impressive number! Imagine what else we could have done with even more effort. All proceeds went directly to the Ayala Foundation, ANCOP USA, UNICEF and the Philippine National Red Cross.

Our randomly formed un-named group wasn't the only one. There were other groups who organized benefit concerts, clothing drives and fundraising events just in the span of the last few weeks. It felt so good. This is just the beginning, there are more relief efforts to come.

Thank goodness the spirit of bayanihan is still alive. I am still proud to be Filipino, and always will be.