Picking up from the horror of devastation and death

CEBU, Philippines - From waking up in the wee hours of the morning to plow the farm field, Nito’s respite would usually be to have lunch with his wife, his 2-year-old daughter and 6-month-old son. But on February 6, 2012 such comforting routine was the last time he could ever see his wife and daughter.

While Nito was playing with his son at the time, the earth shook followed by a rumbling sound as he felt his house move. He quickly grabbed his son and called out his wife to follow them out of the house but, shortly after, when he turned his head, his wife, daughter and house were gone leaving behind instead boulders of rubble of the toppled mountain that was once their backyard.

In another house, Anita was cooking lunch when she heard a deafening sound seconds before the earth shook hard and before she realized that she was sinking deep into the earth. She saw her daughter about to be buried alive too and, with the strength that could only be drawn from a mother’s love and determination, Anita managed to grab her daughter out of the hole just in time to pull her other child to safety, but not her eldest child and her mother who were however buried alive before her eyes.

Anita and her two children managed to run to safety as the mountain of Brgy. Planas in Guihulngan City of Negros Oriental, the place she called home for the last ten years, split open and fell 50 meters below with her loved ones.

Nito, Anita and their children they saved are now huddled in a tent together with 13 other families who like themselves lost their loved ones and live each day with fear from recurring aftershocks every day. Cold and hungry, they have nowhere to go as devastation can be seen everywhere, houses and school buildings destroyed, the earth shaking and livelihood destroyed.

While faith in God is all they could hold on to, the pain, fear and hopelessness left behind by the 6.9 magnitude earthquake now continue to threaten their survival.

The Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD-7) feels these too, prompting it to set up two operations centers specifically in Dumaguete City serving the towns of Bindoy, Ayungon, Tayasan and Jimalalud, and in Guihulngan City servicing the city itself and La Libertad town.

As the DSWD-7 continues its relief operations efforts to reach out to the 63,899 reported affected families it deployed various strategies—in collaboration with the local pulis, the Philippine Army, the Philippine Air Force and the Health Department—from the airlifting of goods to critical but unreachable mountain barangays to the setting up of evacuation centers and conducting medical missions.

“Because of the remoteness of Brgy. Planas, this is the first time that real help is accorded to everyone here,” said Nito during the relief distribution of DSWD-7.

“I would never see neither my mother nor my eldest child again and I don’t know where to start but seeing people trying their best to reach and bring us help, I know I would be able to stand up again for the sake of my child who survived,” said the sobbing Anita with a blank stare to the horizon.

More than P24 million worth of relief goods, along with a message of hope, have been poured by DSWD-7 to the affected areas. The rescuers, workers and the public may not be able to fathom the pain suffered by the survivors but they can send out a message that they are around to help each of the survivors until the latter can start living their normal lives again. (FREEMAN)