As many of you know, in September Typhoon Ondoy struck the Philippines. Rainfall in Manila was the heaviest in recorded history, and there was flooding throughout large ares of the country – in some areas the water was over six feet deep and the Phillipine government declared a “state of calamity”. In response to an appeal from MAKABAYAN, the CULE Executive recently voted unanimously to donate $2000 from the CULE International Solidarity fund to assist with relief efforts.
Our sisters and brothers in the Phillipines are understandably very busy with rebuilding – we recieved the following brief message from them
Greetings! Please tell the leaders and members of the Canadian Union of Labor Employees (CULE) thank you from all of us here. We shall keep you posted of developments in relation to the relief and rehab efforts as soon as possible. Come next week, we shall check the bank and send a receipt via email. Take care always, DJ Janier
We have also recieved this update from Rene Bornilla, MAKABAYAN Secretary General.
Greetings Comrade Patrick! During the past month MAKABAYAN has been busy assisting our comrades affected by the past calamities that ended up into a disaster due to successive Typhoons. Four of the areas gravely affected (marikina, pasig, cainta, Taguig) were of the factory belts where our unions (Selecta, Iglo, RC Cola, GNQ, NMSPI union and cooperative members) and three communities in which two are of fisherfolks tapped by our TU community organizing work at Parañaque City (SANAMANA- Community association of Brgy. Sun Valley, Samahan ng mga Mangingisda sa San Dionisio-Fisherfolks association of Brgy. San Dionisio and SAMAKABA-community association of Brgy. San Isidro). Last October 20 MKP alongside MAKABAYAN and KPD through OSB facilitated the distribution of reliefs that came from an MKP union contact the All NTT Workers of Japan (NWJ) and VDLC or the Vancouver District Labor Council sent aid so we did another round of relief operations last October 27 to areas of Taguig, Pasig, Baseco and Cainta.. We are set for another relief operation tomorrow October 29, 2009 for the areas of Parañaque and the three communities. Various areas are still awaiting for aid since most of the ares like of muntinlupa, Pateros and some parts of Pasig are still on knee-deep water level. Our estimate is that reparation and aid for the workers and masses who were left in bad shape by Typhoon Ondoy and the rest of the Typhoons that whipped the National Capital Region into large scale damage of crops, small scale livelihood, lost lives, livestocks and houses may take more than 3-5 months. We also continue to receive relief packages from workers who were less affected by the calamity such as packages of pants and t-shirts from MKP and RCPI workers. We are set for another relief operation on October 31.