An international Filipino organization on Sunday called for donations of relief goods to be prepared as "balikbayan boxes" or care packages to be given to victims of Typhoon Vamco, which has caused widespread destruction in the Philippines.
As Filipinos reel from the wrath of Typhoon Vamco, known locally as Ulysses, the Confederation of Ilocano Association, Inc., Samahang Ilocano (CIASI) made the plea to over 1,000 Filipinos living in Taiwan, mostly migrant workers.
CIASI is an international Philippine organization with 13 chapters and a total of about 900 members in Taiwan.
They made the appeal at an outdoor basketball court in Taipei's Datong District where the Filipinos were gathered for the association's Taipei Winter Basketball League 2020 opening ceremony.
The organization called for donations of cash, clothes or dried goods, such as canned sardines, noodles and powdered milk, to be sent back in king-size cardboard boxes as numerous areas in the Cagayan Valley region, northeast of the capital Manila, remain submerged in flood waters.
"Look at my hometown of Baggao in the province of Cagayan," said Rheden Delumen, national chairman of CIASI in Taiwan, as he showed CNA an aerial photo of the municipality submerged in as much as two-story high flood waters, with crop plantations destroyed.
Arnold Kanoy, leader of the CIASI in Taiwan Disciplinary Action Committee and commissioner of the basketball tournament, said the "balikbayan boxes" will be sent out as soon as possible after the donations are collected.
"I have the blood of a Filipino and I have to help my countrymen," he said. -Central News Agency
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