HONG KONG - Hong Kong's large expatriate Filipino community yesterday mounted a major fund-raising and relief drive, while criticising the slow distribution of aid to victims.
Thousands of the city's estimated 160,000 Filipinos, many employed as domestic helpers, thronged into churches, downtown parks, sidewalks and malls on their day off in a major show of solidarity with devastated communities back home.
''We cannot concentrate on our work, especially when we talk to them (via telephone) and they complain that they are so hungry,'' said a helper named Fatima whose daughter had been involved in a fight for instant noodles in an evacuation centre near Boracay.