Show Me the Money

Where Did All the Aid and Money Go After Typhoon Yolanda in the Philippines November 2013

Graham Michael Barton is an Englishman retired on a tiny island of less than three thousand souls in the Philippines. Emponet Barton Beach Resort and 60 per cent of the homes on Higatangan Island, Biliran, were destroyed by Yolanda. Two weeks after the super typhoon passed through, Graham returned with a modest amount of supplies and food, distributed throughout the island by his partner, Emily Poyos, who had been born there. The devastation was so severe that Graham returned to Cebu to organize helicopter air lifts and do whatever he could to get aid to his adopted island and its people. During this time, the international community responded magnificently, and Graham had the opportunity to visit the airbase at which most of the aid supplies arrived. This book contains his account of those days and the subsequent hunt for where the aid and billions of pesos went. None of it arrived on his small island. His queries about where the money went were rebuffed. Graham freely admits that he is only one person, and he fervently hopes many more are demanding, Show me the money! His first book, The very Small (Obviously) Book of the Philippines, is a series of snapshots of his experiences as a foreigner in the Philippines. I hope that some found it amusing and entertaining. Show Me the Money, dear readers, is not very funny at all. This book is dedicated to the PHILIPPINE AIRFORCE. Without whom aid would have sat on the tarmac...... risking their lives for their own people was ,in their words, absolutely the right thing to do.