Cordillera Express Padala 'Where Trucks Cannot go -We will!'

Cordillera Express Padala goes to Labey to deliver 400 kilograms of relief goods. Labey is one of the hardest hit areas and furthest from help. It took us an entire day getting there and had to reroute a number of times due to the impassibility of the trails and roads. We ended up having to go through the river. Labey lost 14 houses and damaged about the same number and lost its elementary school to the landslides the head teacher asked if we could help get them tents and books so that the students in the Elementary school can start again next week. The school has a total of 60 students from Grades 1-6 if there are any publishers out there who would like to donate 50 books per grade this would be ideal and tent manufacturers if they could provide those tents that are used during trade fairs the school will be set up in the middle of the road to Labey as it is now washed out on both sides and no vehicles will be able to pass through here for quite some time.

Labey is thus far the most unstable area we have been to in the last week, even the church which is the temporary evacuation site is situated next to the mountain wall and has slides on each of its sides and is being eaten from underneath by the river. The people are in dire need at the moment as they have no suitable safe relocation area within their village's boundaries short of having to go all the way to the Ambuklao dam which is a perilous 10 kilometer hike. We came in through Halsema Highway and Exited through Ambuklao on the Benguet Vizcaya road. Both ways have dangerous washouts that would be dangerous for even seasoned mountain walkers like ourselves.

The mountains are isolated and the villages that once had roads now have perilous foot trails, only by shear brute force is it possible to bring supplies in, that even the men of the villages are strung out from trying to cope with shuttling back and fort from the nearest supply areas that today can be a few days trek away.




We also need portable solar chargers or portable cellphone chargers to distribute so that we can maintain communication channels for emergencies and needs of the remote areas. We found some that are available at CD-R King and this one http://www.gmsolarcharger.com/gm30.htm if possible anyone who wished to make donations this will be our number one priority aside from the school tent and books. thank you.

Cordillera Express Padala is powered by yummy camote and saba from the Cafe by the Ruins Team and the wonderful donations from the friends of Cordillera Expeditions.

(Video by JP Alipio)

P.s. I'm really proud of Sacha everyone was already pretty wasted but while walking down the mountain she still took the time to pick up a piece of trash *red max candy wrapper according to her) on the trail! And luckily enough i caught it on tape! . -you can check it out at about 3:55+ :) None of what you see in the video was staged everything was just caught as it happened

Category:

News & Politics

Tags:

• parma
• pepeng
• benguet
• bokod
• labey
• tublay
• ambuklao
• landslide