While thousands of my countrymen lost their lives, family and/or property due to Typhoon Ondoy, there I was high and dry in my room. The worst tribulation I suffered that day was not being able to go out at will. There wasn't even a power failure to put a crimp in my plans to collapse in front of the TV.So, partly to assuage survivor's guilt and mostly because I felt it was my civic duty to help out, I joined my school's relief effort, which consisted of cooking food and giving it to the Red Cross. I got repaid with a small kindness a day later: my employer decided not to deduct the time off from work I took for that activity.
We were able to make enough on that day to feed 1,000 people rendered homeless by Ondoy.
