Most of the people who write in this site belong to the middle class and live far from the places that were not very fortunate. We have stable jobs, we eat sumptuously and we have decent roofs above our heads but somehow we feel the unimaginable pain of our brothers and sisters in those regions. Our thoughts and actions go to them.
Yet as they say: every cloud has a silver lining; unlike other countries *aherm* North Korea, The Philippines has plenty of international allies. So we listed the top seven highest international aid the country received (mostly as pledges) in terms of cash as of November 17, 2013 according to the Philippine Government.
7.) Panama
Pledged USD 200,000; beneficiary to be announced
Total aid:
PHP 146,200,000.00
(USD 3,400,000.00)
6.) Kuwait
Pledged USD 10M worth of assistance; form of donation to be determined
Total aid:
PHP 430,000,000.00
(USD 10,000,000.00)
5.) Saudi Arabia
USD 10M donation
Total aid:
PHP 430,000,000.00
(USD 10,000,000.00)
4.) Japan
Medical personnel (JICA), Japan Self-Defense Team to assist in humanitarian activities
Use of 15 aircrafts to assist in rescue and relief operations
USD 10M for emergency relief to be coursed through the UN
Emergency relief goods worth up to 60M Yen
Total aid:
PHP 456,101,000.00
(USD 10,607,000.00)
3.) United States of America
More than 50 ships and aircrafts to assist search-and-rescue operations and to airlift emergency supplies, including the George Washington battle group doing medical operations in Eastern Samar
USD 22.5M worth of humanitarian funding through USAID and DoD
Total aid:
PHP 967,500,000.00
(USD 22,500,000.00)
2.) UNOCHA
USD 25 M to be released from the Central Emergency Relief Fund as an initial response
Total aid:
PHP 1,075,000,000.00
(USD 25,000,000.00)
1.) Asian Development Bank
USD 3M Grant for Typhoon Yolanda (Haiyan) Project signed on 14 November 2013 and disbursed to DSWD
USD 20M Grant committed by ADB to be sourced from Japan fund for poverty reduction
Total aid:
PHP 2,068,300,000.00
(USD 48,100,000.00)
The total sum in cash should be USD 134,062,300.00 including the values not included in the above list and that does not even include donations in kind which adds an estimate of USD 136,000,000.00. You see, these figures are mighty staggering to say the least. So, WHY, JUST WHY IN THE NAME OF ODIN'S EPIC BALLSACKS DO I STILL GET FUCKING REPORTS LIKE THESE MORE THAN A WEEK FROM THE TRAGEDY?
And yes, it's from CNN and not from some local-tv station for it to be free of political angles and all that horse manure.
The country has enough fucking dough (though most of it are still in form of pledges but whatever, a good sum of it should have already landed where it needed the most) to build two or even four modern cities and even when that place gets hit again like 20 times over, and trust me, I mean this in the best possible way, they can still rebuild same city 20 times plus a replica of the Eiffel fucking Tower! It's either my sources are wrong or something must be absofuckinggoddamlutely wrong here. Sure, we see reports of signs of progress but where is the national government in all this? Bickering over politics and which government agency should get which repacked relief goods. The foreign volunteers, according to this CNN report seem to be doing most of the work. Way to go Trapos!
Like we said, the writers here are somewhere in the leisure class and are pretty self-sufficient so we usually tend not to give a fuck about the politicking that happens in this god-forsaken country since we are at most indirectly affected by what those political clowns have to say. But god, do their lack of genuine empathy in these precarious times pierce through these thick bourgeoisie skins of ours.
