Judy Bertuso, 63, leans forward inside a bright orange tent set up on the floor of a basketball court in Quezon City, carefully spooning porridge into her husband Apollo’s mouth. Apollo, 65, sits in a wheelchair as he recovers from a stroke, his frail frame outlined against the translucent plastic walls of the tent. Judy, in a wrinkled T-shirt and shorts, holds a bowl beneath the spoon as she feeds him.
She looks tired but unhurried, her movements deliberate, tender — the kind that comes from a lifetime spent caring for each other.
They had left their creekside home a day earlier, afraid it would flood again as Super Typhoon Fung-wong loomed. Their house was inundated during heavy rains in October. And when radio and television warnings urged residents to move to higher ground ahead of the storm, they didn’t wait.
Fung-wong, the most powerful storm to threaten the Philippines this year, brought winds of up to 185 kilometers per hour (115 mph) and gusts reaching 230 kph (143 mph), battering the country’s northeastern coast on Sunday and forcing more than a million people like the Bertusos to flee their homes.
Inside the basketball court, dozens of families occupy rows of bright tents. The wind howls outside. Inside, the hum of quiet conversations drifts from tent to tent, punctuated by the loud play and chatter of children.
Amid the noise and the uncertainty, Judy steadies the spoon again, her hand trembling slightly as she feeds Apollo, as if to say: The storm may rage beyond these walls, but care endures here.
