TACLOBAN, Feb 13 — Football superstar David Beckham visited the Philippines today to give comfort to survivors of the Asian country's deadliest ever typhoon – although not everyone was sure of his identity.
Hundreds of survivors of Super Typhoon Haiyan rushed out of their tent shelters to welcome the global celebrity, who is nevertheless unfamiliar to many citizens of the Philippines, where basketball rather than soccer is king.
“He's so handsome. I heard he plays for the Azkals,” gushed mother-of-four Darilyn Bascug, referring to the Philippines' national football team.
The 38-year-old ex-England international, who ended his illustrious career last year, is on his second visit to the Philippines in his role as a “goodwill ambassador” for the UN Children's Fund.
He flew by private plane today to Tacloban, one of the areas worst-hit by Haiyan which left about 8,000 people dead or missing across the central Philippines in November last year.
The tattooed Beckham, casually dressed in a black UNICEF T-shirt, visited a tent city for several hundred families who lost their homes when giant waves unleashed by Haiyan crashed into Tacloban's coast.
He entered one tent for an extended chat with its occupants.
Bascug, a carpenter's wife who is among those waiting for a new home, admitted she did not really know Beckham that well. Neither had she heard of his wife Victoria, formerly of the Spice Girls.
Shortly after Beckham's arrival, another woman from the area approached an AFP reporter and asked timidly: “Is that man a celebrity?”
Beckham last visited the Philippines in December 2011, where he played a seven-a-side football match with young Filipinos at a government-run centre for abused or abandoned children. — AFP pic
