SM Foundation (SMFI) has set up its Operation Tulong Express Medical Mission at Villamor Airbase grandstand as part of its disaster response program, to attend to the medical needs of Samar, Leyte, Palawan and Roxas survivors of super-typhoon Yolanda. SMFI Executive Director Debbie P. Sy leads the volunteers in a tent set up at the air base with its SM Mobile Clinics on standby. Treated cases are dehydration, upset stomach, fever, colds, sore throat and coughs due to prolonged weather exposure. Many Tacloban survivors endured long walks from within the city or from nearby towns and others from Samar to queue at the airport for transport to Manila. Evacuees were given stress debriefing by volunteer psychiatrists of SM medical mission and by military psychiatrists to combat fear of water after seeing their city flattened by water surges from sea and bay.

Major Diego Pilar of Philippine Air Force, said that as of Thursday noon, 500 evacuees on board C130 arrived in the airbase. Some 1,500 evacuees are expected each day; they are provided food, water and clothing from SMFI, including means to contact relatives in Metro Manila. They are brought to SM medical tent for consultation and are given medicines from a small pharmacy set up within the SM tent. More serious cases are referred to government hospitals with foundation staff assigned to followup on patients’ condition.

Del Pilar said C130 planes ferry relief goods including medicines to Tacloban airport and upon their return, evacuees are allowed to board the plane. The C130s make 3 to 4 trips daily to transport these goods. Private aircrafts of foreign countries also fly from Villamor to bring aid to calamity-stricken areas in Visayas. Three aircrafts from the US left with goods and medicines and personnel to assist in the mission.

Some 20,000 packs of relief goods called Kalinga prepared in SM Cebu were ferried to Tacloban via Ormoc, and 30,000 more were repacked in Cebu for reinforcement and distribution to badly-hit interior towns. Some 10,000 relief packs were sent to Guiuan, Samar by trucks hired for the purpose of going to these towns and end up in Tacloban or Guiuan. Sy said there are continuing efforts to provide relief in quake-infested provinces Bohol Cebu and in other typhoon-devastated places in Panay Islands (Iloilo, Antique and Capiz), Bicol and Bacolod.