After Severe Tropical Storm Kristine, I had wanted to visit the area where she unleashed her fury, Camarines Sur. I saw the photos in the papers and on the internet and actually could not contact our friends, Bernadette or Bidi-Bidi and our community leader, Teodora Aquino, who supplies us with her banner product, taba ng talangka (crab paste). Aquino was a beneficiary of our Great Women Project in 2012 which Global Affairs Canada and Philippine Commission on Women (PCW) supported. We merely provided market access for her products but 12 years later, we are still in business with her group. Bernadette, on the other hand, is a multi-awarded artist who also is a rural farmer.
I waited for five days until Bernadette finally replied to my messages. Aquino, on the other hand, reached out about a few days later, much to our pleasant surprise. She said: “Your goods are on the way!” and “Our electricity is back.” Just like that, I wondered what the back stories were.
As luck would have it, I was invited to grace the awarding ceremonies of the Outstanding Rural Women of Bicol held by the Department of Agriculture’s Regional Gender and Development (GAD) focal point Madame Aloha Gigi Bañaria. Guess where? Camarines Sur! Though I was a bit unsure if my flight would push through with three storms yet coming, I prayed it would and it did.
First stop was Bidi’s farm store where her people are still drying bales of cloth on her rooftop, and many of her people still cleaning up or as we say in Filipino, naglilimas. This term gives you a picture of people busy cleaning up after a storm. This is three weeks after, and they are still at it. Bidi showed me how high the waters reached (one meter or more) on that fateful night of Oct. 22 when the dams broke and released a deluge into her town of Ba-ao, a railroad town where Philippine National Railways (PNR) used to stop when trains were still working and in fashion. This has never happened before, she relates. But she carries on, though most of her possessions like books and papers will never be restored as they were washed away. Her neighbors saw her antique narra chairs floating in the street. That bad.
On the other side of Ba-ao, a little further towards Naga is Gainza, a fifth-class municipality where our community leaders have managed to start a thriving food processing business making crab paste back in 2012. Government agencies worked to give them a building that is good for 15 years, maybe thinking no business would last that long. But they did. Now they have just two years left in this structure and they would have to start paying rent soon. It is my first time to see Teodora in Gainza, as our last meet up was in our Serendra store maybe 10 years ago. We served her crab paste with pasta and she was floored. She never thought a chef would use her product for what looked like a five-star meal.
Teodora and co-member Jovita told us their Typhoon Kristine stories. Jovita stayed on her stairs for three days, until rescuers came. Teodora hosted 11 families in her second story, as they had no other place to go while waiting for flood waters to subside. After a half sack of rice was finished in three days, they ran out of food to serve all 11 families. Thank God rescuers came with more provisions. After the waters ebbed, the women leaders went back to work and started the clean-up of their homes, then to the factory to ship out orders. Not wasting any time, Teodora and Jovita went back to work, undeterred by what they just went through.
And this is the secret of these women farmers. Their tenacity and resilience are unmatched and best recognized by the public. This leads me to the Search for Outstanding Rural Women (SORW) 2024, which event led me to visit these two exceptional women leaders. DA Region 5 recognized five women who are inspiring farmer-leaders, organic practitioners and all-around mothers and wives. I commend Region 5 for setting an example for others to emulate – that is, recognizing these rural women. In the audience were past winners and heads of Rural Improvement Clubs or RICs. I could feel the power in that hall on a balmy afternoon in Magarao, a sleepy town near Naga. There was enough estrogen to lift a mountain with all the women (and some men) present. In fact, Chief Bañaria’s assistant GAD focal is a man. What better way to show diversity and gender equity.
As I look back on my day spent with these women, I turn a bit emotional as I could feel their pain and suffering but they still manage to smile. In fact, they do not even post photos of their damage but more of how they have come back from the ruins. And that is what is most admirable. They did not even ask for funds or help because of what they went through. They simply went back to business. I bought a few new product samples, and she threw in an extra bottle for good measure.
As for Bernadette, she is also slowly recovering but also is just asking for understanding if she is a bit late in her response. They both – Bernadette and Teodora – have gone back to work and preparing for adaptation because there just may be another woman like Kristine who will again unleash her rage and fury. It is now climate adaptation and not mitigation that they are after. In fact, Teodora ended our short meet up by saying: “Maybe I just need to elevate my flooring a little, Ma’am.” With a smile, she told me they will carry on.
Now if that is not resilience, I don’t know what is.