Yolanda survivors bid SRP tent city goodbye

TENT CITY (File Photo / Junjie Mendoza)

The tent city that was home for 54 families from Eastern Visayas  who were  displaced by supertyphoon Yolanda  will fold up tomorrow, more than four months after the world’s strongest  storm to hit land devastated the country’s  central part and eastern seaboard.

A simple farewell party was organized yesterday by the Cebu City government and the Philippine Red Cross at the tent city or what is formally called  the Family Rebuilding Center (FRC) at the South Road Properties.

Some of the 52 families will go back to Tacloban City and other parts of Eastern Visayas while a number chose to  call Cebu their new home.

Jocelyn Diaz  will be looking for a place to rent in the city.

“Diri na mi magsugod ug balik kuyog sa akong pamilya,” said the 50-year-old from Tacloban City. (My family will start anew in Cebu.)
She said she would miss their tent shelters in the reclamation area.

“Nag picture-picture gyud ko sa akong tent. Mingawon pud ko diri oy. Mga happy memories ra gyud naa namo diri,” Diaz said. (I took pictures of my tent that gave us nothing but happy memories.)

In his speech during the program, Mayor Michael Rama recalled how the  plan to set up a tent city was  made with the PRC led by its national president Richard Gordon.

“It was like when Noah built the ark. People laughed at him and criticized him, but it saved him. Here in tent city, even if there were a lot of criticisms, we still continued and helped you start again,” he said.

The cluster of tents was opened last December 23.

Singer Kitchie Nadal, entertained her fellow Warays. One of the songs she rendered was the original Waray song “Idoy, uday” which is about getting together to rise from calamity.
Ester Concha of the city’s Department of Social Welfare and Services (DSWS) said the survivors who want to go  homes to Samar and Leyte will be given plane  tickets from donors in the private sector.