Emergency Response

The following letter was written by Fr. Rex Reyes, General Secretary of the National Council of Churches in the Philippines and an Indigenous Episcopalian priest from one of the areas most affected by the recent disasters:

October 18, 2009

Dear Friends,

I woke up to a cloudy overcast Sunday morning. It looks like a confirmation of the weather bulletin that another super-typhoon (Ramil)  is poised to hit Northern Luzon in the next two or three days. If the forecast is accurate, this storm will move slowly once it hits land and will pass by the region that suffered the brunt of the last typhoon barely a week ago...

NCCP’s Chairman, Bishop El Lazaro, myself, and two other staff will travel to Bontoc, Mountain Province tonight for a special function with the Episcopal Church in the Philippines. We will be taking along with us relief goods as our vehicle can carry. It will help feed the people doing rehabilitation work in his diocese to build houses, clear landslides and open roads.

We continue to receive help for these victims from local groups, individuals and agencies here and abroad. We thank you for all for the outpouring prayers and support. We can all feel these and thereby have the courage to declare to people not to lose hope. Add the resilience of the human spirit during trying moments and their faith in a God who does not abandon His loved ones and the burden becomes bearable.

The NCCP is blessed with networks in the regions—its churches, its regional formations and people’s organizations. In witness and in service, they are crucial co-workers. We have a comprehensive disaster management program that has been tested and refined over time. Given what we have, we have responded to any relief and rehabilitation work in the country like the floods in the Western Visayas, the disaster in the Bicol region and in Ginsa-ugon. NCCP’s capacity is recognized by the Department of Social Welfare and Development and we are one of three faith-based agencies in the country recognized, licensed and authorized by the DSWD. We try to be faithful to our calling to be the action of churches together in the Philippines. We have the audacity to declare the hope also because of your journeying with us.

Notwithstanding a government that has never learned its lessons in a disaster-prone country (I wish that the government will seriously support the work of the weather bureau by providing it with up-to-date forecasting equipments), we continue to offer our services with the vision that the time will come when we shall be able to be more prepared and the coping up mechanism shall be in place. Even now, I see this taking place in some communities given the poor record of the state in terms of immediate response. We certainly commend civic and people’s organizations in the Philippines who are ready to offer what they have in times of disasters.

If there is another indication of hope, it is in the fact that amidst the crisis in the world, people are yet capable of sharing. The resources of the world are becoming meager. But, its equitable sharing especially for the most vulnerable makes up for this deficiency. It is an occasion for thanksgiving and celebration.

As of this date, the NCCP has provided relief to about 4,500 families. Clothes and linen were part of the relief goods brought to Laguna province following receipt of the same from St. Luke’s Medical Center and the St. Mark’s Methodist congregation in Manila. We have maintained the volume of our relief pack: five kilos of rice, a kilo of dried fish, a kilo of monggo, salt, canned goods, cooking oil and clothes whenever these arrive. One recipient in Rizal province said it was a supply good for three days. I hope and pray it is so—enough to give them time and strength to rise again.

For more details and update of NCCP’s relief and rehab work, please take time to visit our website* and its blogsite.*

Glory to God whose power, working in us, can do infinitely more than we can ask or imagine: Glory to him from generation to generation in the Church, and in Christ Jesus for ever and ever. Amen.

Padi Rex Rb Reyes, Jr.