Filipino groups across the country are seeking assistance for those victimized by the recent typhoon in their native country. A local reverend hopes southwest Missourians will also heed the call to offer their support. KSMU’s Scott Harvey has more.
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Rev. Ednor Sebag leads the Filipino-American Christian Fellowship inside Springfield’s Glenstone Baptist Church. He is asking for prayers at a time when an estimated 10,000 people in the central Philippines are feared dead, and hundreds of thousands are said to have been displaced by last week’s storm.
Sebag says church officials had sent aid following last month’s 7.2-magnitude earthquake that struck the Philippine island of Bohol and nearby Cebu province. A Thanksgiving concert had been planned to raise more funds, which Sebag says will now also benefit victims of the last week’s typhoon and some of the hardest hit cities like Tacloban.
“Our goal is to raise funds because by next year, we were planning to go to the Philippines and have our medical mission trip. And also all these things that we can help our countrymen on,” Sebag says.
Related: See what local non-profit Convoy of Hope is doing in the Philippines.
Sebag, who also serves as chairman of the Filipino-American Association of Southwest Missouri, says he knows of several local Philippines’ natives whose families back home have been impacted by the storm. The Reverend says he’s had a chance to speak with a friend there, who advises money not be sent there to individuals just yet due to the crime that has emerged from the chaos.
“All the commercial enterprises now are closed because people ransacked them. So they don’t sell anything; you cannot buy food, you cannot buy anything because if they try to open their stores people will ransack everything. So they cannot use their money now.”
Instead, Sebag suggests, make your donations to organizations who can safety utilize the funds to help the country rebuild.
The concert to benefit the victims of recent storms in the Philippines is scheduled for Sunday, Nov. 17 at 4:30 at University Plaza.