Death Valley Relief Operation at Guintarcan

DEATH VALLEY MAGAZINE, through their Death Valley Expeditionary Corps, came to Cebu recently to engage in a humanitarian mission to ease the plight of the communities caused by Tropical Cyclone Haiyan. Haiyan, also known as Typhoon Yolanda, was the strongest storm that the world had ever experienced in its entire modern climatic history with wind strength at 215 KPH and above. It struck the Philippines on November 8, 2013 leaving a wide swath of destruction and death. The islands of Samar and Leyte bore the full brunt of the storm as well as Northern Cebu and some parts of the Visayas.

DVM is an online magazine about professional adventurers and interesting people while the DV Expeditionary Corps is its humanitarian arm. It gets its crew from the very places where they go to execute their relief missions just like they did at Guintarcan Island. Their Philippine contacts were from the Camp Red Bushcraft and Survival Guild, a Cebu-based club of outdoorsmen who are passionate about primitive-living skills and knives. They were Jing de Egurrola, Glenn Pestaño, Ernie Salomon, Dominic Sepe, Faith Gomez, Justine Ianne Abella and Jhurds Neo.

James Price, founder of DVM, arrived at the Mactan Cebu International Airport on the early morning of November 22, 2013 and brought with him relief goods donated by the people and servicemen of the United States of America. Mr. Price decided to augment his cargo with locally-sourced goods like powdered milk, canned sardines and beans, biscuits, laundry soaps, candies, disposable lighters and bottled water.

On the morning of November 23, the DV Expeditionary Corps proceeded to Medellin in a convoy of two vehicles provided by Gerald Ortiz and the Don Bosco High School Batch ‘94. A small motorboat ferried the crew and cargo over the Bantayan Channel into the small village of Langub in Guintarcan. The crew returned to mainland Cebu on the following day, November 24, after that successful aid mission. Below are the collage of photos that document this activity of two days:

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About the Writer:

PinoyApache is one of the crew of the Death Valley Expeditionary Corps doing relief mission in Guintarcan Island, Cebu. He teaches survival and primitive-living skills to mountaineers and other interested people under Snakehawk Wilderness School. He is owner of a blog called Warrior Pilgrimage and is an article contributor for iSTORYA.NET and Pinoy Mountaineer.