By Gideon C. Corgue
TACLOBAN
CITY – Thanking God for sparing their grandmother from the fury
of supertyphoon ‘Yolanda” (international name, Haiyan), Filipino-Australian
cousins gave Christmas presents to the children in the evacuation centers of
Tacloban City.
Anne
Robson and Ethel Teleron, Filipino-Australians who lived in Mexico along with
their cousin Sivan Japor from Cebu City, distributed gifts to children who
survived the most powerful typhoon
‘Yolanda’ that hit the Visayas region
last Nov. 8, leaving thousands of people dead and billions of properties
wasted.
The
gifts comprising toys, shoes, drawing books, notebooks, pencils, slippers and
basketballs were given to more than 100 children at People’s Center, the
evacuation center for the affected families from barangay 51 right after the film showing and free cellphone charging
conducted by the Philippine Information Agency (PIA)-9 there.
Robson
said she got a call from her mother informing her of the devastation wrought by supertyphoon ‘Yolanda’ in Tacloban
where her 85 year-old grandma, Porferia Mabalhin, who is living in barangay 52,
was among the victims.
Robson
said she was very happy upon learning that her grandma survived the typhoon.
“I
am very happy that my grandma who is already in a frail health was saved by my
relative in our ancestral house and survived the wrath of Yolanda,” Robson
said.
“As
our own way of thanking God, we came here to thank Him for saving our dear
grandma,” Robson said adding that thousands were killed by the killer typhoon.