Our summer capital submerged in muddy water
Pepeng (Parma) submerges Baguio City, the Philippines' summer capital, in muddy water (Photo by Associated Press grabbed from Yahoo! News)

The people of the Cordilleras are sending the rest of the country and the world  a call for help, a plea for support, in the middle of horrible tragedies in Northern Luzon caused by typhoon Pepeng (Parma).

More than 200 deaths have been recorded in the Cordillera areas alone. The stench of rotting corpses has apparently replaced the smell of strawberries in Baguio City. This urgent appeal includes a request for donations of lime to be applied on bodies of those who died in landslides near our beloved City of Pines.

URGENT APPEAL FOR SUPPORT FOR THE VICTIMS OF TYPHOON PEPENG IN THE CORDILLERA, PHILIPPINES
Oct. 9, 2009

BAGUIO CITY—The Cordillera Region in Northern Luzon, homeland of indigenous peoples collectively known as Igorots, is one of the areas hit most with Typhoon Pepeng, after the supertyphoon Ondoy. This mountainous region may not have been as victimized by the flood, but the very nature of the land and terrain has resulted in massive, disastrous landslides that claimed both properties and lives, especially in the mining-ravaged areas of Itogon and Mankayan in Benguet province.