By Miriam Desacada
Tacloban City Mayor Alfred Romualdez led city residents and visitors in commemoration ceremonies of the 11th super typhoon Yolanda held at the Basper Mass Grave of the Holy Cross Cemetery in the northern part of the city yesterday morning (Nov. 8).
Romualdez, in his speech after the Holy Mass, said, “Many asked me how long shall we keep on holding memorial ceremony for Yolanda victims. I said we will continue to do this for as long as we live, 15 years from now, 20 years from now, and so on. Yes, this will go on.”The mayor said there’s a reason why we survive Yolanda that claimed the lives of thousands 11 years ago. “We have a purpose in life and that purpose is to teach the next generations on how to prepare for calamities, disasters that challenge us every day. Kaya po napaka importante ito,” he said.
“Th’e times are different now,” Romualdez said citing that a century ago, the city was also devastated by a strong typhoon and 15,000 people died.
The mayor said the people should stop heavily relying on the government because it is very hard for the latter to do its role considering the thousands who are asking for help. “It’s extremely hard, but in order for us to lighten the challenge, we should have learned our lessons by now. We must listen to the government’s warning not to live again in identified danger zones,” he said.
Romualdez said the government has been spending millions to establish relocation sites for the survivors yet many of them still prefer to return and live in these danger zones. Everyone must have learned the lessons supposedly. But then everybody wants to live beside the sea anyway,” lamented the mayor.
“Maraming nahihirapan, maraming namamatay because of ignorance. Let’s learn, let’s cooperate with each other, cooperate with your government. This is very important. Yolanda claimed the lives of about 500 children. Now, we went houses explaining that theirs is a danger zone. Many of them refused to move,” added Romualdez.
Journalists memorial rites
Nestor L. Abrematea, PHD, publisher of The Tacloban Star and other weeklies, and a former vice president of the Publishers Association of the Philippines Inc. (PAPI), together with members of the Eastern Visayas Media Without Borders Inc. (EVMWBI), led by its founding president Miriam Maderazo, also held the 11th Yolanda Media Memorial ceremony at the destroyed DyVL Radio building at the central part of the city.
The ceremony started at 7 a.m. yesterday, and capped in the evening with collective candle lighting for the souls of the departed journalists or the Yolanda victims.
Organized by The Tacloban Star and The Manila Newsweek newspapers, the media memorial honored the late broadcaster Ronald Viñas and chief technician Allan Medino of Aksyon Radyo-DyVL, reporter Archie Globio of The Tacloban Star and DyBR Radio, broadcaster Malou Realino of DyBR Station, Chito Lopez of Radyo Abante, and chief technician Ariel Aguilon of Bombo Radyo-Tacloban who went missing during the height of the typhoon onslaught. Meanwhile, publisher Rollie Montilla of Eastern Times, and editor Dindo Ortesa of Ex
press died right after the disaster when they failed to take their maintenance medicines.
Abrematea said these journalists of the local media who perished during and immediately after Yolanda will not be forgotten by their colleagues for their dedication to their profession and sacrificing their lives to death just to report and keep alive the news or the account of the assaulting typhoon.
Maderazo also appealed to the public to offer prayers of the journalists who died during the brutal devastation. She asked her colleagues to join in the Media Memorial to honor their fallen co-workers in the media.
She said the death of their fellow journalists should serve as a valuable lesson to them to be on alert and ensure their own safety in whatever challenges they may face in the course of the performance of their duty as media practitioners.
A requiem mass was held earlier at 5:30 a.m. that was officiated by Rev. Fr. Raymund Cipriano Mazo of the Sacred Heart of Jesus Parish Church at T. Claudio St. in Panalaron District of Tacloban City, for the souls of the fallen media workers who died on duty, during and after the devastation.