RIMM introduced Japan Heart to 4CDG-ARESCOM (4th Regional Community Defense Group, Army Reserve Command) and visited Colonel Pasqual at Camp Eldridge, Los Banos, Laguna. It was agreed that 4CDG-ARESCOM would facilitate land-transportation for emergency medical mission of Japan Heart in the region 4A (CALABARZON) & 4B( MIMAROPA).

RIMM then set up an meeting with the Department of Health. Director Dr. Gloria Balboa of Health Emergency Management Bureau summoned Chief Health Program Officer Dr. Joel Buenaventura and Medical Specialist Dr. Ronald Law of Bureau of International Health Cooperation and had a meeting at DOH office in Santa Cruz, Manila with Japan Heart representative Ms. Mika Aono and aneurosurgeon Dr. Miki Kanaji who is a RIMM member and volunteered in Myanmar with Japan Heart.

RIMM and Japan Heart learned that after typhoon Haiyan (Filipino name: Yolanda) there was a bill constructed to deal with such National disaster emergency and PIHAC (Philippine International Humanitarian Assistance Cluster) was established, as there was no such organization before. PIHAC is authorized on behalf of the other department such as  DFA (Department of Foreign Affairs) and DOH to handle and coordinate foreign voluntary organizations which come to assist in case of emergency. Basically in normal time PRC (Professional Regulation Commission) licenses are required to conduct medical services in the Philippines. However, it will be waived with pre-registration with DOH as a foreign voluntary organization.

Japan Heart confirmed to work on the application documents for pre-registration.

Former Rotarian presidents of RIMM had been invited to the event as it was known that RIMM Rotarians (Rotary International Club Multinational Manila) had personally conducted three support tours to the disaster-stricken areas of Typhoon Yolanda (Haiyan) and that one of its members – a doctor residing in Japan – also volunteers her services to “Japan Heart“. Japan Heart, a Japanese NGO, dispatches groups of volunteer doctors and nurses to Southeast Asian countries during natural disasters and can be of great assistance in the Philippines during such destructive calamities.

Past RIMM president Casey, a native of Japan, discussed his contacts with Japan Heart and followed up with arranging a person-to person meeting with Colonel Pascual and Major De Sagun in January 2016 as the representative of Japan Heart will visit the Philippines for the purpose of expanding its services to the Philippines.

This is the life-changing story of one group of fishermen and their families.

After having made landfall for the fifth time weakened Typhoon Yolanda sweeps across the northern part of Panay Island at low tide. Most of the fishermen and their families living on the many small intertidal islands north of Roxas City that barely reach out of the sea at high tide do not evacuate. They have seen many typhoons moving across the area during their lifetime, causing little damage.

This time it is different. By 11:00am the storm is very strong, destroying many of the nippa hut style homes in its path while the sea rises quickly above their low-lying island. Heading stooped-over into the strong wind they grab their children as well as some chicken coops and labor across the flooded basketball court to the only concrete structure on the island: their unfinished, open, dilapidated barangay hall. They place the chicken coups along the rear steal rebar-enforced wall so that their children can stand on them as the water rises and stand in front of them. The still standing, also steel-reinforced side wall facing the oncoming storm protects them from being blown away. For the next four hours they cling to each other, trapped by the water swirling around them and the strong winds buffeting what remains of the concrete structure. Fortunately the roof does not collapse on them.

All are able to barely escape with their lives as the sea recedes by 3:00pm, thanks to the coincidences of a quick moving, weakened typhoon sweeping across their island at low tide. If the typhoon would have hit their island at high tide most would have drowned or would have been swept away as the side wall was slowly weakening and could have been blown out by the force of the rising water.