When the ground tore open beneath the Philippines last week, Roldan Dante was working in a nearby town. By the time he could return, his home in Glan, Sarangani province, had collapsed. His wife and two young children were gone.
“If only I had known this was going to happen, I would have picked them up,” he told This Week in Asia, as social workers pressed government cash aid into his hands.
“I feel traumatised. I’m in shock and I still can’t accept what happened.”
Dante’s loss speaks to the...