Families in hardest-hit Bantayan town still living in makeshift shelters nearly a year after Yolanda

Teodula Pastrano, 58, shows CDN inside the tent which has served as their home for a few months before the family was able to build a shack beside it in barangay Bantigue, Bantayan town. But when it rains, the family still seeks for refuge inside the tent.(CDN PHOTO/PETER L. ROMANILLOS)

Teodula Pastrana and her family of seven have become used to sleeping on a “waterbed” at night.

The 58-year-old housewife from Bantayan town, however, was not referring to a real waterbed experience.

The family’s bungalow was among those swept away during the onslaught of supertyphoon Yolanda (international name: Haiyan) when it made its second landfall in northern Cebu nearly a year ago.

She and her husband, Teresito, 53, raise livestock for a living. Their son also chips in by sending them whatever amount he could save from his meager salary as a garbage truck driver.

According to the Cebu Provincial Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Office (PDRRMO), Bantayan town sustained the most damage when supertyphoon Yolanda, with wind speeds reaching up to 315 kilometers per hour, unleashed its fury in the central and eastern section of the country in Nov. 8, 2013.

Bantayan – the egg basket of Central Visayas — suffered heavily from the devastation with an estimated P1.5 billion losses in infrastructure, tourism and livelihood.

The town recorded at least 50 deaths, the highest among the 16 Yolanda-hit towns and cities in northern Cebu. Over 22,000 families were displaced in Bantayan alone.

Six months after Yolanda struck, the Pastranas were able to move out of the evacuation center after building a shack out of woven bamboo (amakan), tarpaulin sheets and wood.

“Amo nang gi-baligya among baboy nga gibuhi para mapatukod ang among payag (We sold our pigs so we could build this house),” Teodula Pastrana said.

They however, pack up and evacuate from their rickety shack to a tent set up beside their house when there’s a heavy downpour.

A night of non-stop rain spells double trouble for the Pastranas since they live less than 40 meters away from the sea in a remote area in barangay Bantigue, Bantayan town, 137 kilometers from Cebu City.

“Kung mag-uwan ug kusog unya mutaas ang tubig, mura gyud mi ug natulog sa waterbed (Water rises when it rains hard, it really feels like you’re sleeping on a waterbed.),” she told Cebu Daily News.

The circular polyester tent distributed to families in the Yolanda calamity area by the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) is big enough for six to eight people.

Pastrana said her six-month-old grandson would get fidgety inside the tent especially during daytime.
“Kung sa adlaw pud, mura mi ug masunog diha sa sulod. (During the day, we’re close to being burned inside),” she said.

Nearly a year after Yolanda, Pastrana said, help from relief and humanitarian groups have dropped to a trickle.

The Pastranas are not the only ones with a similar ordeal.

Bantayan Mayor Christopher Escario said close to 6,000 families are still residing in tents scattered in the municipality’s 25 barangays.

He said the municipal government has exhausted all available means to provide those displaced with permanent shelters “but the town couldn’t do it all alone.”

By partnering with various local and international non-government organizations (NGOs) and the private sector, Escario said close to 10,000 families already had their houses fixed while others were relocated to new settlements.

The burden of resettling the survivors was shouldered mostly by NGOs such as Habitat for Humanity, Gawad Kalinga, Oxfam and Islamic Relief Worldwide, said Escario.

The mayor said their town has already used up its meager P5 million calamity fund.

Escario said he has grown tired at the snail-paced rehabilitation efforts on the part of the national government.

“When it rains at night, I can’t sleep because I’m thinking about the people who still live in tents. Usahay, makahilak ko maghuna-huna but wa ko’y mabuhat because on our part, we’ve already done our best,” Escario told CDN.

“The failure is not in the LGU but in the people above us,” he added.

He said the town only received P26 million for the repair of the government-owned structures such as the multi-purpose gym, public market and municipal hall.

Meanwhile, the P30,000 Emergency Shelter Assistance (ESA) which the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) gives to affected families “have never reached Bantayan.”

A year has passed but the National Housing Authority (NHA) has not yet built a single house in northern Cebu.

Task Force Paglig-on project development officer Julius Camerino said the NHA has already committed to build 1,333 housing units but the project is still at the initial stages of implementation.

He said it took such a long time for the agency to start bidding since the funds were released by the Department of Budget and Management (DBM) two weeks ago.

DMB released P1.84 billion to the NHA to fund the construction of new housing units in Cebu.

Aside from that, bidding for the housing project in each affected town will take place in Manila, he said.

In Cebu, the task force has proposed a total of P24,000 housing units for displaced families. Some of them had their houses totally destroyed while others need to be relocated from danger zones.

“Some of the families in Bantayan were not given Emergency Shelter Assistance (ESA) since some of them live in danger zones. If we give them funds to repair their houses, it might be useless since they have to be relocated,” he said.

For Mayor Escario, the “commitments will remain as empty promises” until representatives from NHA coordinate with his office regarding the housing projects.

“Istorya lang gihapon na, way aksyon (That is just all talk, no action),” said the mayor.

Earlier, rehabilitation czar Panfilo Lacson said the NHA plans to build 205,000 housing units in typhoon-stricken areas.

Only 20,000 units remain without space for a relocation site, he said, while the NHA has also finished the bidding process for 78,000 housing units as of October.

Cebu Gov. Hilario Davide III said the“biggest challenge” in providing permanent shelters for displaced families is the acquisition of suitable relocation sites.

The municipal governments in the islands of Camotes and Bantayan could not directly proceed with the purchase since the land is not yet classified as alienable and disposable.

In 1981, President Ferdinand Marcos declared the towns of Santa Fe, Bantayan and Madridejos as wilderness areas while the Camotes group of islands comprising the towns of Pilar, Poro, Tudela and San Francisco were classified in 1980 as mangrove forest reserves.

Commission on Audit (COA) rules require land titles in any government land deal.

However, the latest report of the PDRRMO on the status of relocation sites in the affected LGUs seem to say otherwise.

Of the 15 affected towns and cities, only Sogod has not identified a relocation site.

Some were purchased by humanitarian organizations and were converted into villages such as the ones made by Habitat for Humanity in the towns of Sta. Fe, Bantayan and Madridejos.

In other towns, the local government unit (LGU) purchased the land while some of the town’s landowners like the Ancajas family in barangay Kawit, Medellin and Durano family in Poro, Camotes Island also donated lots.

For his part, Mayor Escario said the relocation site is just a minor hurdle in the rehabilitation efforts.

A number of private donors have approached him to offer help through land donations in the town but he said he did not finalize the transactions just yet.

If the land is donated, he said the LGU is free from any COA violation.

“But since there’s no clear commitment on the part of the national government, we did not proceed with that yet. Kana nalang naa na gyud sila diri and they present to me the project, diha lang ta mo-padayon,” he told CDN.

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