Enrique Iglesias: urging fans to contribute
AFP/Madrid/Manila
Grammy-winning Spanish singer Enrique Iglesias, whose mother is from the Philippines, urged his fans to give money to help victims of the devastating Typhoon Haiyan.
“Help the Philippines! People in the Philippines need our help right away! Please consider donating to Haiyan disaster relief. You’ll feel good that you did,” the 38-year-old wrote on his official website beside a link to the web page of the American Red Cross.
Iglesias, whose hits include “Hero” and “Cuando Me Enamoro”, is currently on tour in the US.
He is the third and youngest child of veteran Spanish singer Julio Iglesias and socialite and magazine journalist Isabel Preysler, who moved to Madrid from the Philippines when she was a teenager.
Preysler, dubbed “The Pearl of Manila” by Spain’s gossip magazines, and Julio Iglesias split in 1979 after a seven-year marriage. She is currently married to former Spanish finance minister Miguel Boyer.
The UN fears the typhoon may have killed over 10,000 people. It estimates that more than 11.3mn Filipinos have been affected, with 673,000 made homeless, since Haiyan - one of the most powerful typhoons ever - smashed into the nation’s central islands on Friday.
The typhoon struck one month after the Philippines was hit by a 7.2-magnitude earthquake which destroyed the homes and livelihoods of around 350,000 people.
Since bursting on to the music scene in 1995, Enrique Iglesias has become one of the biggest selling Spanish artists of all time, selling over 100mn albums worldwide.
Meanwhile, boxing star Manny Pacquiao admitted feelings of anguish and regret after the final stages of training for a must-win fight kept him from visiting typhoon victims in his native Philippines.
Pacquiao said he felt “very bad” for the thousands killed and displaced by super typhoon Haiyan, one of the most powerful ever recorded, which swept through central islands.
But Pacquiao, who is training out of harm’s way in his home city of General Santos, said he could not jeopardise preparations for his November 24 fight against America’s Brandon Rios.
“I really feel very bad over what happened in the Visayas region where more than 10,000 people are believed to have lost their lives,” Pacquiao said in a “statement to his people” posted on his website.
“I really want to visit the area and personally do what I can to help our countrymen who have suffered so much in this terrible tragedy but I’m in deep training in General Santos City for a crucial fight so I regret I cannot go.”
The 34-year-old Congressman pledged to send aid to affected areas, where the desperate search for supplies has turned deadly with eight people killed in a crush at a government rice store.
“I will send help to those who need it the most and I enjoin all of you to pray for our country and people in these trying times,” he said.
Pacquiao, a former champion in eight weight divisions, is bidding to turn back the clock and recover from two consecutive defeats when he faces Rios in Macau on November 24.
Defeat would redouble expectations for his retirement, although Pacquiao has insisted he will not hang up his gloves if he loses the World Boxing Organisation welterweight title bout.