HUMANITARIAN CAMPAIGN – ORTHODOX PHILANTHROPY ASSOCIATION OF THE DIOCESE OF HUȘI
APPEAL TO HUMANITY…With just one euro donated, you can provide a day’s food for a disaster-stricken family in San Isidro. For the price of a coffee from a vending machine, you can help a grandmother feed the only grandson who survived the recent disasters on the Philippine island of Mindanao. You’ve probably never heard of her, or of what happened there, because it’s a region the world has largely forgotten and considers insignificant. You’d be surprised to learn that a devastating earthquake of magnitude 7.8 struck there recently, followed by 8,500 aftershocks so far! Some aftershocks reached magnitudes of 6.5 or 6.7! At the same time, the region was also hit by Typhoon Bavi, which caused flooding, landslides, and additional deaths on top of those caused by the earthquake. As a result of these disasters, more than 600 families in San Isidro have been left without shelter, with absolutely no means of survival. They are survivors because others died during the earthquake. Many children have been orphaned, and even families who kept all their members now face another major challenge: how to survive out in the open with absolutely nothing? Perhaps with our help. One euro is worth a kilogram of rice there, and that’s enough to feed an entire family for a day. Donations, however small, can be made to the special account opened by the “Orthodox Philanthropy Association” of Huși: RO58 RNCB 0857 1603 7343 0001 RNCBROBU.
“Whoever saves a life saves the entire world” comes from the Babylonian Talmud. According to this teaching, destroying or saving a single life is equivalent in importance to destroying or saving an entire world, underscoring the infinite value of every individual. In the comfort of your own home, you’d never think that somewhere far away, at the very moment you’re enjoying dessert while watching your favorite show, a child is falling asleep hungry on wet ground, with no roof over their head. You could save this child, at least for the moment, because they need very little to survive. In San Isidro, all it takes is a handful of rice and a few vegetables — except right now they have absolutely nothing, and that little bit you could donate might mean saving them.
Doydoy’s Story
Doydoy is a 36-year-old young man from the Bisaya tribe. He led a quiet life on his coconut farm, inherited from his parents. One morning he went with his wife to the foot of the mountain to plant rice. While they were working, they felt the ground shift beneath their feet. Instinctively, they looked toward the mountain where their farm was, and saw it visibly shrinking. The earthquake was so powerful that the mountain collapsed inward. Not only did they lose their home and everything they owned, but even the family’s land no longer exists. Their only luck, if you can call it that, was that at that hour their children were starting school, so the whole family survived. Unfortunately, they now have nothing left and depend solely on donations — and those are very scarce, because very few people know about this family’s ordeal. This is Doydoy’s story, but also the story of hundreds of other families in the area.
Broken Families of San Isidro
This is what life looks like now in San Isidro. Many families lost one or more members in the earthquakes and catastrophic flooding. That’s why you’ll see a child or two with only one parent. Others lost both parents and are left only with a grandfather or grandmother. In a bitter sense, one could say all the children were lucky — none of them died, because they were all at school, and the school, not being located on the mountain, wasn’t seriously affected. Unfortunately, some of them are now without parents, and even though by some miracle they all survived, their ordeal has only just begun, because every new day is a day of fighting to survive.
Double Disaster: What Happened on Mindanao Island
Following the devastating magnitude 7.8 earthquake that struck the Mindanao region (Philippines) on June 8, 2026, the Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology (PHIVOLCS) recorded a total of more than 8,500 aftershocks in the following weeks. Chronologically and by intensity, the aftershock sequence unfolded as follows: in the first 24 hours, more than 1,100 secondary seismic movements were quickly reported. By June 19, the officially monitored count had reached 8,381 aftershocks. The largest aftershocks ranged in magnitude from 6.4 to 6.7. In the very first hours after the main June 8 quake, the strongest initial aftershock occurred, reported by local seismologists at magnitude 6.7 (assessed by other international networks at around 6.4–6.5). Another major aftershock of magnitude 6.5 shook the region again later, on June 26. Typhoon Bavi (known in the Philippines as “Inday”) and an intensified southwest monsoon severely struck Sarangani province in July 2026. Torrential rains caused floods and landslides that killed at least 10 people in Malapatan and displaced hundreds more families in towns such as Glan. At least 10 deaths were officially recorded in Malapatan, Sarangani, most of the victims belonging to the indigenous Blaan community, whose homes were buried by displaced soil. Displacement and damage: around 450 families in Barangay Mudan (Glan) were evacuated due to flooding and landslide risk. This tragedy struck local communities that were still in the process of recovering from a devastating magnitude 7.8 earthquake that had occurred in the region just a month earlier.
