Photo above from inquirer.net website (of the Philippine Daily Inquirer newspaper) shows but a small area of the widespread devastation suffered by several provinces in central Philippines, after supertyphoon "Yolanda" (international name "Haiyan") hit the country yesterday. Haiyan is said to be the one of the world's strongest, if not the strongest, typhoon to hit this year. Strong rains and winds have rendered hundreds of thousands of Filipinos homeless, businesses destroyed, roads and other infrastructure devastated. Body count of the deceased (some lying on the roads) is just starting, and the Philippine Red Cross has an early estimate of more than a thousand dead. (Update: as of Saturday, authorities say more than 10,000 are said to be dead, in Leyte province alone. News from many other provinces devastated by Yolanda are still hard to obtain as of Saturday because communication and transportation to these areas are still not possible.)
Prayers are really needed to help the devastated people rise again from this calamity. And donations for their needs will help them very much also because they now urgently seek for food, water, clothes, shelter and other daily necessities.
You can forward donations to one of the institutions now accepting donations, which is the Philippine Daily Inquirer, the Philippines's leading newspaper. And also the Philippine Red Cross. See details below (image from http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/524095/inquirer-accepts-donations-for-yolanda-victims). For cash donations coming from abroad, I believe that Bank of the Philippine Islands (BPI) mentioned below has international branches.
Thanks very much for your prayers, sympathy, and help for my country.
(Update November 11, 2013: Please see http://www.spot.ph/the-feed/54864/how-to-help-yolandaph-relief-operations-and-donations for list of more ways to send in donations to the Philippine Red Cross, the Department of Social Welfare and Development or DSWD of the Philippine Government, and the Gawad Kalinga, which is a nongovernment organization [NGO].)
