Mass graves still line streets of some of the areas in the Philippines hit hardest by Typhoon Haiyan — adults on one side, children 10 and younger on the other. Months after the November storm barreled through the island nation, families still visit daily the earthen mounds, each with 40 to 50 unmarked white crosses.
"It was heart-wrenching to see that," state House Vice Speaker John Mizuno said Friday in a phone interview from the Philippines.
Mizuno and his wife, May Besario Mizuno, have been traveling the country for the past few weeks touring several provinces, meeting with government officials and visiting with relatives who were forced to evacuate their damaged home in a town about 30 miles from Tacloban city or face starvation.
"We made the decision to go right after the (legislative) session ended because we needed to follow up on the rebuilding efforts," said Mizuno (D, Kamehameha Heights-Kalihi Valley).
The couple took the trip in part to scope out sites for two small, self-sustaining farming villages — one in Bohol, which was hit by a 7.2-magnitude earthquake in October, less than a month before Typhoon Haiyan struck the country, and another in Leyte, one of the areas most devastated by the typhoon. Besario Mizuno serves as president of the Congress of Visayan Organizations in Hawaii, which raised enough money during last year’s push for relief aid to fund the construction of a small village to aid typhoon victims.
"We really need to go back to (our donors) and tell them that all the moneys they donated are (being) given to the intended purpose," Besario Mizuno said.
In total the organization raised roughly $100,000 through efforts such as concerts and T-shirt sales. The organization had already been talking about raising money to build a village for the earthquake victims when the typhoon struck, Besario Mizuno said.
The group has joined with the Gawad Kalinga Community Development Foundation to make its dream of building homes for victims a reality. The two organizations recently signed a memorandum of understanding in which the foundation committed to a dollar-for-dollar match of funds raised by COVO, allowing the organizations to build two villages rather than one. Besario Mizuno said one village costs about $80,000.
Although the villages will each have about 20 homes, multiple families could live in one structure, so more than 20 families could be helped, Mizuno said. The vision is that villagers would farm some of their food to promote self-sustainability, he added.
The villages will be dubbed "COVO Aloha GK USA Village."
Mizuno and his wife met Tuesday with their niece Sophia Mae Paltingca of Barugo Town, Leyte, along with Mayor Alfred Romualdez of Tacloban City and Leyte Gov. Leopoldo Dominic Petilla to discuss the extensive damage, rebuilding efforts and the future site for a village for Typhoon Haiyan victims.
"I am glad they are working to help our people in rebuilding homes and lives," 17-year-old Paltingca said in a news release last week.
Mizuno and his wife didn’t hear from their family in the Philippines for 10 days after the storm hit, leaving them to fear the worst.
Typhoon Haiyan, known for being the strongest typhoon ever recorded, resulted in the death of more than 6,000 people. Mizuno said government officials described to them how planks and pipes delivered death blows to people, and coconuts were shot about by the storm like cannonballs — all "just moving about with complete destruction and without prejudice." Many bodies remain unidentified, which could in part be because they washed ashore from other villages.
"It’s been a good trip," Mizuno said. "It’s been an emotional trip, and it’s been a heart-wrenching, eye-opening trip for us."
