It was already 12 noon, but Mary Academia was still preparing lunch as her four children were waiting. They had to be back in school by 1 p.m.
Nearby, some of Academia’s able-bodied neighbors sat under the shade and exchange stories in their temporary shelter.
There used to be better times, she recalled, but everything changed after Tropical Storm Sendong.
Academia, 32, her husband Joanel Taclobos, 32, and four kids now live in a tent in barangay Cadawinonan, Dumaguete City, along with five other families. The flood that swept roads, trees and bridges also swept their nipa hut near the Banica River, with all their earthly belongings with it.
“Okay ra man unta diri basta naa ra unta CR ug tubig, bahala ug walay kuryente (It’s okay here, as long as we have a comfort room and running water, even though we have no electricity),” she told the Dumaguete MetroPost.
While only five families live in the tent community in barangay Cadawinonan, many other tents act as flood shelters for those living along the riverbanks, as they evacuate their homes when the Banica river floods.
Before the flood last December 17, life was better for her family. “My husband would work only twice a week as a parking attendant at the Negros Oriental State University (NORSU), but we were able to eat at least twice a day,” she said.
Since tropical storm Sendong, her husband has to work every day to make ends meet. The relief goods that they had been getting fairly regularly from both government and non-government organizations has been reduced to trickles.
“We used to receive two kilos of rice a week but that has stopped. Perhaps they have realigned the relief goods to the earthquake victims,” she said.
Tinang Teo Jubela, Social Welfare Officer VI, says that while the City sent some relief goods to Guihulngan and other earthquake hit areas, the reason they stopped sending relief goods to the Cadawinonan “tent city” is because they have seen that “the flood victims are now living normal lives.”
“They are ready to start again, it is normal for human beings to fall and rise back up again,” Jubela said. The relief goods are now focused in Junob and Bagacay, where help is still in dire need.
Jubela advises those who wish to donate relief goods to the affected families to channel them through the City DSWD or the barangay captain of the community, to make sure that these goods will be given directly to the affected families, and not land in the wrong hands.
The DSWD, in partnership with the City of Dumaguete, has a P20 million housing budget plan, good for 120 families. Each family, especially those whose homes were totally damaged by the flood, will have the chance to have a new home, away from the river banks, Jubela said.
But Academia and her neighbors may have to wait for a longer time to get a house under this plan because the first batch of 60 families to settle in the recently bought lot in Bajumpandan are the victims of the Feb. 7, 2009 flood.
“We might have to stay in this tent for more than a year. However, I heard the owner of this lot has a plan to use this lot, and we would have to leave,” she added in Cebuano.
With this, Mary spends most of her time thinking what the future would hold for her family, especially with their fifth child–a baby girl–due in April. “We’d rather stay here than to go back to the riverside, even if it would take much longer for the City to relocate us,” she said. (By Beverly Zena Jane Linao and Jose Adrian A. Miraflor, SU Masscom interns)
