It seems that our poverty-stricken and typhoon-ridden country has no shortage of heroes whose selfless acts of kindness do not go unnoticed by the world. Just after "Puschcart Educator" Efren Penaflorida was named Hero of the Year by CNN, TIME has declared Muelmar Magallanes, the 18-year-old Filipino construction worker who saved the lives of 30 of his family members and neighbors at the height of the killer Typhoon Ondoy (Tropical Storm Ketsana), as one of its Top 10 Heroes for 2009.

In the magazine's "The Top 10 of Everything of 2009" feature,   TIME said, "Magallanes had changed the lives of dozens of family members and neighbors–and lost his own. After hearing that a nearby river had jumped its banks, Magallanes helped move his family to higher ground as water engulfed his village. Then he went back to do the same for some 30 neighbors. After helping a mother and her infant off a makeshift raft, an exhausted Magallanes was lost in the water, his body recovered the next day." It was reported that while he was saving other people, "a wall collapsed on him and a television set fell on his head, killing him instantly," according to GMANews.TV.