Church bells in more than 50,000 parishes nationwide are set to ring simultaneously tomorrow to commemorate the first anniversary of supertyphoon Yolanda.
According to Cebu Archbishop Jose Palma, the activity is part of the National Day of Prayer a year after Yolanda left over 6,000 people dead.
The activity will carry the theme “Rising Above Yolanda: Celebrating the Resilient Filipino Spirit.”
“We are being encouraged to look back at the past year and remember that fateful event in prayer. This is an occasion to remember those who perished during the typhoon and to ask the Lord to strengthen those who are left behind,” Palma said in an interview yesterday.
Due to a prior commitment, Palma won’t be able to celebrate Mass in northern Cebu which was greatly affected by Yolanda.
He nonetheless asked Bishop Emilio Bataclan to represent him and celebrate Mass.
“The celebration of Masses is a fitting way to pray for the repose of those who perished during the typhoon as well as the survivors,” Palma said.
Special prayers for victims and survivors of Yolanda will also be said in all chuches in the country at exactly 6 p.m. tomorrow
The archbishop encouraged priests to ring their church bells tomorrow to mark the first anniversary of Yolanda.
“Bells are part of our culture. And so I encourage the parishes to ring the bells as a way of calling our attention of what happened last year,” he said.
Palma was grateful to different institutions, organizations, and individuals who helped victims of calamities—a picture of true brotherhood and solidarity.
“If we are one body of Christ, the healthy members should help the weak,” said Palma who expressed elation over the progress of the archdiocese’s rehabilitation and rebuilding program in the northern part of Cebu.
Fr. Charles Jayme, head of the relief and rehabilitation unit of the Archdiocese of Cebu, said the Cebu archdiocese along with the National Secretariat for Social Action of the Catholic Bishops’
Conference of the Philippines (NASSA-CBCP) and Rome-based Caritas Internationalis are working hand in hand to assist typhoon survivors in northern Cebu.
By March 2015, the local Church is expected to finish the construction of about 350 houses in three Caritas Villages located in barangays Tacup and Hagnaya in San Remigio as well as in brgy. Bungtod, Bogo City.
Jayme said the archdiocese also built a number of houses in barangay Upper Bantigue in Daanbantayan.
Apart from shelters, he said the local Church also provided 153 fishing boats, 255 fishing gears, and livelihood projects to 721 benificiaries.
“We are building communities here. After all, the Catholic Church is the ‘Church of the Poor,’ doing something patterned to the life of Jesus Christ,” he added.
One of the schemes they used was to request recipients of fishing boats and gears to donate a kilo of fish every month to other typhoon survivors.
“That’s a way to teaching them to help others and to share what they have,” Jayme said.
Although parishes in northern Cebu are close to fully rebuilding its ruined structures and facilities, Jayme said he’s concerned about the condition of chapels which were also ripped by supertyphoon Yolanda.
“The parishes are on the process of recovery although they are not yet a hundred percent done. The challenge now is restoring our chapels. There are some which have even yet to start rebuilding their chapels,” he said.
Archbishop Palma earlier implemented the “adopt-a-parish” program wherein parishes in Metro Cebu assisted the 16 parishes in the north that was devastated by supertyphoon Yolanda.
The Caritas Cebu led by Fr. Socrates Saldua, also the chairperson of the Archdiocesan Commission on Service, is helping the archdiocese in its ongoing relief and rehabilitation operations.
A year after Yolanda, Fr. Jayme said there’s still a lot to do to help the survivors.
“We need more help. And if I may specify it, people need housing materials. They need shelter, water, and sanitation,” he said.
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