Their sudden ejection from the 10:00 am trip cut them off from the convoy of a relief mission organized by the Balsa Mindanao, the same organization that also organized a low-key but sustained relief and medical missions to the areas ravaged by Typhoon Pablo last year.
“The migration of survivors indicate the rising problem of people having lost trust in government,” said Prof. Mae Templa, who is also a coordinator of Balsa Mindanao.
The swift netizen defense of alleged Yolanda looters establishes that violence is permissible in the name of survival. But, we have to ask, survival under what conditions? Survival according to whose standards? The answer to the first seems to be that violence is permissible under conditions over which people have no control, such as natural disasters.
“It’s not God who was absent or was somewhere else when Yolanda struck. It was the Aquino administration that was and still is nowhere to be felt, found or seen by our hapless kababayans (fellow Filipinos),” said Davao-based lawmaker, Atty. Carlos Isagani Zarate of Bayan Muna Partylist.
The poor though, could only share coins and even used clothings, but the magnanimity and sincerity was overwhelming, volunteers of Tulong Kabataan said.