Right now the important things needed are hospital ships, helicopters, medical supplies, drinking water, food and shelters... I feel so helpless donating just cash, so many lives need to be helped.
"The best way to help a disaster victim is through a financial donation to the Red Cross. Financial contributions allow the Red Cross to purchase exactly what is needed for the disaster relief operation. Monetary donations also enable the Red Cross to purchase relief supplies close to the disaster site which avoids delays and transportation costs in getting basic necessities to disaster victims. Because the affected area has generally experienced significant economic loss, purchasing relief supplies in or close to the disaster site also helps to stimulate the weakened local economy."
http://www.redcross.org/support/donating-fundraising/other-w...
Find a local charity.
The Red Cross is HORRIBLY inefficient and wasteful. Your money is buying them furniture.
edit: fifthly: http://www.charitynavigator.org/index.cfm?bay=search.summary...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Red_Cross#Controversie...
http://articles.latimes.com/2006/feb/04/local/me-redcross4
https://www.google.com/search?q=Red+Cross+resigns
(note all the resignations are different people!)
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/07/18/red-cro...
http://blogs.reuters.com/felix-salmon/2012/11/12/the-problem...
and there was a huge scandal where they used emergency fund donations to buy furniture for their offices - having trouble finding it right now
Luckily for them, they are far away from where the typhoon hit, but in terms of moving some money there, providing some work for people has funneled several orders of magnitude more cash into the country than what I could provide as charity.
Getting it beyond the port is the hard part, but carriers have a few tools that might help with that.
http://in.reuters.com/article/2013/11/10/philippines-typhoon...