The next few days after the typhoon surge showed a population driven to desperate straits. There was nothing to drink, nothing to eat. If they had stocked food before the typhoon, all of that were washed away by the water. Moreover, help from government did not come soon when they most needed it. Everyone had to fend for himself, rich or poor. With criminal elements joining the fray, the looting assumed murderous proportions. Small armed groups, some riding in vehicles or trucks, looted food as well as non-food items, like TV sets, computers, iphones and tablets, kitchenware, clothing apparel – just about anything that could be carried. Soon, these elements were raiding private homes, using their guns to threaten their victims. There were reports of rape and murder. And there was no authority to restore order because the police themselves became victims of the typhoon. They, too, had to look after their own families.
“I fear anarchy happening in Tacloban City,” said CNN iReporter Maelene Alcala, who was on vacation in Tacloban where the typhoon struck and was evacuated to Manila. “It’s like survival of the fittest…The whole scene was like something fresh out of a movie. It was like the end of the world…Survivors are walking everywhere carrying sacks of goods they were able to get.”[i]
Other reporters had similar impressions. Philippine Daily Inquirer’s DJ Yap, wrote after witnessing the street scene the next day Saturday, that it looked like “it belonged in a horror movie: barefoot residents sifting through trash that remained uncollected, the homeless wandering around, stores pillaged and emptied amid frenzied howls by the looters.”
With food and clean water in short supply and without any government presence at all, many residents were driven to desperation. The stores had closed, and there was nothing to buy even if one had money. It was each one for himself, the law of the jungle operating in the city in Yolanda’s aftermath.
“It’s anarchy,” said Kenneth Uy, owner of the Asia Stars Hotel. There was simply no one to maintain order that day. According to the mayor, out of the more than 280 policemen, only 25 reported for duty. In downtown Tacloban where the business establishments were located, there was no policeman on sight.
Thus, when a desperate mob gathered outside the 578 Emporium intending to loot it, there was nothing the owner could do, even if he was brandishing a weapon. He had to give way when the men started to count “1, 2, 3.” Before long, a queue had formed outside the store, and the street was filled with people carrying crates of household supplies, including noodles, bottled water and canned goods.
The looting spread to other places, including fast-food chain branches and shopping centers, among them the Gaisano Central on Justice Romualdez Street, and Robinson’s Place in Marasbaras. An Air Force man Richard Bilisario, who was surveying the damage when he chanced upon the looting of Robinson’s Place, was appalled. He said under the circumstance, looting for food and water would be justifiable, but he saw some people taking TV sets and other non-food items in their cars, and that irked him.
The looting of Robinson’s carried on through the afternoon and the evening. Children lugged plastic bags of rubber shoes and sandals. A group of men sported identical Hello Kitty backpacks, each filled with loot. Two teenagers towed a stroller full of DVD players. ATM machines in backs near Robinsons were not spared.[ii]
A video footage taken by the camera crew of GMA News correspondent Jiggy Manicad showed several men breaking into what appeared to be the storage area of a grocery store in the city and grabbing as much bread and softdrinks bottles as they could get. Manicad said some residents have even resorted to forcibly entering fast food shops and destroying ATMs to get food and cash. “The breadth of the damage made it impossible for the authorities to handle the situation. It’s each one for himself, particularly in a city like Tacloban,” he said.
He reported that there was a lone policeman in the area where looting was taking place but he was powerless to stop the residents because he was outnumbered and people were already desperate for food and other necessities.
An unidentified man who admitted looting supplies from a grocery store said he and other residents were just forced to steal because they had to survive. He said the grocery owner told them it was alright to take the food items, but not dried goods like clothes. “We are in a difficult situation. Somebody died in the family. We have to save ourselves. Money is worthless these days,” the man said, apparently to justify his acts.[iii]
Survival mode
At the outskirts of Tacloban, reporter was able to interview a village councilman Edward Gualberto who accidentally stepped on bodies as he raided the wreckage of a home. Wearing nothing but a pair of red basketball trousers, the father-of-four apologized for his shabby appearance and for stealing from the dead.
"I am a decent person. But if you have not eaten in three days, you do shameful things to survive," Gualberto told AFP as he dug canned goods from the debris and flies swarmed over the bodies. "We have no food, we need water, and other things to survive. This typhoon has stripped us of our dignity. "
After half a day's work, he had filled a bag with an assortment of essentials including packs of spaghetti, cans of beer, detergent, soap, canned goods, biscuits, and candies.
Other typhoon survivors were more aggressive as they took advantage of a security vacuum created by the absence of the city's police force. Some broke through shops that had withstood the typhoon by hammering through glass windows and winching open steel barricades.
One desperate meat shop owner brandished a handgun in a failed bid to prevent a mob from entering his shop. He was ignored and the shop was ransacked. The businessman just silently stood by, waving his gun in the air and shouting. When he realized he had lost the fight, he cursed them and walked away.
Nearby, pastry shop owner Emma Bermejo described the widespread looting as "anarchy."
"There is no security personnel, relief goods are too slow to arrive. People are dirty, hungry, and thirsty. A few more days and they will begin to kill each other," she said. "This is shameful. We have been hit by a catastrophe and now our businesses are gone. Looted. I can understand if they take our food and water, they can have it. But TV sets? Washing machines?"
Even the Philippine Red Cross was not spared as a convoy carrying relief goods was ransacked near Tacloban.[iv]
NFA raided
If help had come earlier, some say the looting would not have happened. But five days after the storm and help was still uncertain, the situation could have driven any hungry man to commit desperate acts. With many stores in Tacloban looted earlier, their shelves drained of food, people looked elsewhere. They did not have to look very far. Some 17 kilometers away, the bodega of the National Food Authority in the town of Alangalang, Leyte, with its stock of 33,000 50-kilo bags of rice and 96,000 sacks of palay, looked an inviting target.
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[iii] “Looting reported in Tacloban in aftermath of Yolanda,” November 9, 2013 7:49 pm, GMA
[iv] “Looting and scenes of desperation as tormented Yolanda survivors fight for food, water,”
[v] Sabillo, Kristine Angeli, “Leyte NFA warehouse being stormed by hungry villagers collapses; 8 die,” INQUIRER.net, Radyo Inquirer 990AM, 12:54 pm, Wednesday, November 13th, 2013. With a report from Agence France Presse
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