Sto. Niño SPED Center, one of the 37 temporary shelters in Tacloban City for the victims of typhoon Yolanda, accommodates 44 families from Barangay 6 and 6-A. One of them is the family of Leonardo Abobo, Jr., a beneficiary of the Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program who has survived the said tragedy.

Leonardo, who has just undergone appendectomy or the surgical removal of the inflamed and painful appendix, started to convey his part of the story by saying that his family miraculously survived after they all had faced near death.

He said that their family actually stayed in a 2-storey house of a relative in San Jose. But then they were confronted with unimaginable danger. The water surged. Luckily, they stayed in a room where there was the altar. They prayed then there was a miracle. The water subsided leaving them safe.

His eldest child, who decided to stay in their house in Brgy.6, Tacloban, fell on the water but was saved when the waves pushed him back. “Thanks God. He was even able to save some of our neighbours,” he remarked.

Leonardo stated that maybe the disaster happened because the people seemed to have forgotten about God and how to care for the environment. He added, “We have to become better and we should keep our values. We should always remember that we are like the plants which grow, bloom, and then die.”

He apparently expressed their need for any assistance to help them reconstruct their house and start a livelihood.

Leonardo, whose family draws strength from God and from all the help they are receiving, concluded the conversation, “It is a good thing that we have DSWD. My family is very much grateful to the agency. Their staff personally delivers to us the relief goods we need. If not for DSWD, we would have surely starved.”