Jonathan's Testimony -
I'm Jonathan Macawile, 28 yrs.old. I'm from Hernani, Eastern Samar & was currently residing in Tacloban City when Typhoon Haiyan locally known as "Typhoon Yolanda" hit Leyte & Samar Islands. The day before the typhoon, I was in my school processing my enrollment for 2nd semester then the next day our enrollment was cancelled because of the typhoon. We are informed to go home to our families for our safety but I could'nt go home because of time constraint & travel time. And I was not expecting that the Typhoon was really that intense so I decided not to go home & stay in our boarding house to also look for my younger sister who is living with me. Around 7pm i was listening to the radio about the typhoon, I heared the speech of Pres. Aquino that the coming typhoon was very strong and he advise the constinuents of provinces that will be affected by typhoon should be ready & be safe, he said it many times in his speech. Then I realized how intense & strong the incoming typhoon was. I got nervous & prayed to God for our safety especially my family in samar because our house is nearby the seashore & I couldn't sleep anymore until the landfall at 5 am. At that time my sister went to the 3rd flr to wake up our boardmates since the winds become stronger than expected. Around 7am, the roof of our boarding house flew away & one of my room mate nearly died because he was in the room when the roof collapsed. We can already see that our neighbors house collapsed & roofs was blown away by the strong winds. My boardmates already panicked when the water has already risen & the 2nd floor has cracks already. We decided to go our neighbor's house which was more sturdy. But the house was already full of evacues & the water reached thier 1st floor. We panicked again &so we decided to go back to our boarding house. Together we prayed for our safety & God's intervence to stop the typhoon. Around 10am the typhoon weakened until it stop. We decided to go out & check the surroundings, we also need food so we walk around only to see the destroyed houses, buildings, electric posts, we also already see dead people in the streets others are covered by blood due to wounds & injuries. Others are like zombies, walking in the street & don't know what they are doing. It looks devastating everywhere, we can see men women, & childrens crying & injured. But still we search for food until a good friend gave us food to eat in the afternoon. The next day, we still searched for food until 2pm, the Robinsons Mall, which was nearby the house was forced by the hungry people & it was now in chaos due to their struggle for food. We decided to join so we can have food & to fill our hungry stomachs. We got a stack of food for 3 days. After 3 days, we decided to leave Tacloban because of the chaos in the city & the bad smell of the dead people around and we might get sick. One of my boardmates father arrived with motorcycle to rescue her. One of my friend who has a motorcycle helped us to leave. 7 people rode in the motorcyles so we can leave. We cannot go through in the streets since their are many people walking & it was large in volume. There are many dead in streets & it was smelly. It took us 4 hrs before we can go out & passed the San Juanico bridge. It took us more than a day travel until we reached our hometown. Then I find out that our town was washed out & we don't have a home anymore. My family was in the evacuation & but all of them survived. I thanked God that they were alive but the problem was the food & I was already tired, hungry & wet from the rain. Until now my family is struggling since our source of livelihood was already destroyed by the Typhoon. We started to slept on the tent that was given to us since our houses was washed out & we relied on relief goods given to us. Until now, my family has still the trauma from the devastation of typhoon Haiyan & in need of help so we can start anew. Life maybe difficult but we are struggling to start even from scratch. We thanked the people who has good hearts who have helped my hometown to face the aftermath of the typhoon & that until now didnt stop helping us. I also want to thanked my close friend Pastor Hermie Banico, who helped me a lot in this difficult situation. Thank you so much & may God shower more blessing to all who helped us.
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