Mayon couples long for intimacy, too

LEGAZPI CITY , Philippines  - In 2006 they said they had to go home to feed the pigs, but these days, Mayon evacuees insist they have to go home to brush their teeth.

The insistence on oral hygiene is but a thinly veiled excuse for couples to return home to get some privacy.

A 24-hour curfew has been imposed by the local government and checkpoints have been set up in dangerous areas to prevent residents from returning home.

“There is no privacy in the room. We are staying with some 13 families,” said Henmier Amador, 27, of Barangay Buyuan. Henmier is staying with his wife at Room 33-B of the Bagumbayan Elementary School.

Henmier said he and his wife asked permission from authorities to go home last Dec. 20 to celebrate their first wedding anniversary in their house in Barangay Buyuan, about eight kilometers from the volcano’s crater.

He said that even if there are conjugal rooms for couples, no one among them would like to go in the rooms as hundreds of other evacuees might take a peek.

It was Albay Gov. Joey Salceda who ordered the setting up of conjugal rooms in the 31 evacuation sites immediately after alert level 3 was raised on Dec. 14.

Salceda was surprised that nobody was using the conjugal rooms so he ordered camp coordinators to convert these again into regular rooms for evacuees.

“Now we are receiving reports that some of the evacuees are having sex in the comfort rooms as they are no longer allowed to go home with the strict implementation of our policy of no-human-activity within the six-kilometer danger zone up to the eight-kilometer, high-risk zone under alert level 4,” said Salceda.

Henmier, meantime, also shared that aside from mosquitoes, they are disturbed by the crying of infants and loud snores.

“We are getting less sleep as we continue to stay inside the evacuation center. But we understand if the authorities are keeping us from returning home because of the looming eruption of the volcano,” he said.

Salceda believes that sex can relieve stress and they understand the needs of the evacuees.

Dr. Luis Mendoza, provincial health director, added that sex is a very private biological need which must be respected.

“Although we don’t encourage doing it in evacuation centers, we must still have a place for that inside the centers so couples can enjoy their intimacy,” Mendoza said.

There are 802 families or 4,812 persons at the Bagumbayan Central School.

A total of 10,032 families or 47,563 persons from 32 barangays in the cities of Tabaco, Ligao and Legazpi as well as in the towns of Guinobatan, Camalig, Daraga, Malilipot and Sto. Domingo, have been evacuated as alert level 4 remains hoisted over Mayon volcano.