Why child survivors of Pablo can still afford to smile

It was a scene reminiscent of Typhoon Washi (local name: Sendong) exactly one year ago. Helpless children, women weeping in silence, men in shock. Typhoon Bopha (local name: Pablo) battered the southern Philippines from late Monday evening until early on the morning of Tuesday, Dec. 4, leaving a trail of devastation that has particularly affected girls and boys.

“We didn’t know what a typhoon was until we were hit,” says Veruela Municipal Social Welfare and Development officer Elvira Dagaraga, shedding tears as she recalls the experience. “Never in my 30 years of living here had we experienced such a thing.”

Veruela lies 55-km. from the boundary of Compostela Valley, which was also badly affected.

“There are more than 6,000 households in Veruela, an equivalent population of more than 33,000 people,” says Dagaraga. “All were affected. This number includes 16,000 children who are very distressed; some can’t be reached because their villages remain inaccessible due to the flooding and fallen trees. We have more than 2,200 children of all ages in our evacuation centers and many are showing signs of serious distress, barely speaking and not engaging with their families or friends. We urgently need psycho-social help — but we have no expertise to provide it ourselves.”

Seven-year-old survivor Anna found herself alone on a hilltop in Barangay Del Monte. Her father brought Anna and her siblings to higher grounds at the height of the typhoon.

In a very faint voice, Anna recalls, “When our house collapsed, my father carried me on his back and put me beside a coconut tree to shield me from the rain. Other neighbors were also there.” She says that her father told her to stay there while he fetched other members of the family.

As her father turned back to get the other members of their family, Anna saw her mother and grandmother negotiating their way up the hill. As his father stretched out his arm to help them, a flying metal sheet hit the two women. Both died instantly.

Anna’s father collapsed, overcome by grief, amid the powerful wind and intense rain. “I don’t remember anything more,” the grade two pupil says when asked what happened next.

Milagros dela Cruz, a midwife assisting Dagaraga, says that a woman brought Anna to the gymnasium, which serves as an evacuation center for some 420 families. “Anna can barely walk because of the wounds on her feet. She also has a hematoma on the right shoulder.”

Dela Cruz cleaned Anna’s wound and gave her an anti-tetanus injection but notes that Anna’s father is in a state of shock and unable to care for her so she is now being cared for by Dela Cruz and Dagaraga.

“We don’t know how many Annas are still out there because several villages remain inaccessible,” Carin van der Hor, country director for Plan International in the Philippines, says. “Technically, she is not an unaccompanied child because she still has a father but, with his present condition, he cannot give Anna the care and protection that she urgently needs. Anna has lost her nurturing and caring environment,” she adds.

While there are no reports yet of child abuse or child trafficking, experience from Typhoon Washi last year shows that these risks increase the longer survivors stay in evacuation centers. The absence of private and child-friendly spaces in evacuation centers make children especially vulnerable to all forms of abuse.

Mardy Halcon, communications officer of Plan International who has visited the municipalities of Monkayo, Compostela, New Bataan and Montevista — all in Compostela Valley, says that they do not yet have a clear number of households that survived Typhoon Pablo. “Barangay Andap which is part of New Bataan, the worst hit municipality in Compostela Valley, used to have 200 to 300 houses. Ngayon wala ng bahay. The barangay is now covered with rocks and boulders that are bigger than the houses. Sira lahat, pati school.”

Halcon says that, according to the daycare social workers, there were about 2,000 people living in that barangay “at ang sabi sa akin, ang nabilang nila na buhay ay close to 200 people. Ang dami pang nawawala. Nag-a-account pa ng household.”

Plan has been at the center of things since Pablo struck its deadly wrath. Plan has donated through Irish Aid, an NGO based in Ireland, 400 tents to the New Bataan municipality “para matulungan ang mga bata.” “Maganda ang tent. Dalawang families ang pwedeng tumira sa isang tent. Para na rin siyang bahay,” says Halcon. Plan also delivered water jars and hygienic kits. It has also started building a “child-friendly space” and “breast-feeding space” for lactating mothers.

Halcon, who has spoken to some old people in Compostela, recalls being told by old-timers that they have not had experienced a typhoon as devastating as Pablo since 1912. “Pero ang nakakatuwa ang mga bata, they can afford to smile. Takot sila sa hangin pero on ordinary days, naka-smile sila and all they want is to go back to school.”

Plan International is raising $1.5M to respond to Typhoon Bopha. Plan’s response efforts will focus on education in emergencies and child protection in emergencies.

(Sometime this January, Plan and our very young foundation, Make Your Nanay Proud, [MYNP] will work together on some operations for the victims of Typhoon Pablo.)