Help For Typhoon Ondoy Victims

To all:

By now, you must have read and seen the devastation wrought by Ondoy when it swept into Central Luzon last Friday, Sept 25. The statistics make it the worst natural calamity to hit the country in three decades:

-- 80 percent of metro Manila was flooded, sweeping flood waters reaching second floor homes

-- 246 Filipinos have died (more numbers to come from the provinces)

-- 1.9 million people affected

-- 180,000 tons of paddy field rice destroyed

-- 375,000 Manila residents abandoned their homes

-- economic costs estimated at $100 million

The government has appealed for donations of clothes, blankets, food and water for many thousands who have sought shelter in evacuation centers. And in true Bayanihan tradition, 24-hour fundraising TV telethons are raising cash and goods from companies and Filipinos for the last three days. For a look at the plight of the victims, go to YouTube or the New York Times slide show (197 photos).

Mekong Circle can do its part, as it did when we raised donations for the Leyte mudslide victims. Send your checks payable to Mekong Circle to our Treasurer Bik Marquez at 1200 Bayhill Suite 119, San Bruno, California 94066 (Tel. 650 589 3522). Please note on the face of the check that the donation is for "Typhoon Ondoy Relief."

We will pool the money and transmit it to our Philippine Mekong Circle affiliate which will forward it to the appropriate receivers. Your donations, as usual, will qualify as a tax deduction for charitable purposes. Please do it now. This is an emergency.

(by Pete Fuentecilla, Red Del Rosario, Bik Marquez)