Students and parents who are fire victims gather at the lobby of Cebu International Convention Center (CICC) to receive school supplies and participate in the read aloud activity organized by Gig and the Amazing Sampaguita Foundation Inc. (GASFI). (CDN PHOTO/JULIT JAINAR)
Harlie Queen Bantog, 16, had always been excited about the opening of classes. This year, however, she is not.
She is coming in as a Grade 9 student at the Comprehensive National High School (CNHS) of Mandaue City with neither a single school supply nor a school bag.
Whatever little possession her family had was lost to the fire that hit her community — the neighboring barangays of Guizo and Mantuyong — last March 12.
Three months since the fire, Bantog, her two younger siblings and their grandmother who raised them, are among the over a thousand families still living on temporary shelters at the grounds of the Cebu International Convention Center (CICC).
With the fire victims still unable to return to their villages, the CICC ground is now temporary home to 709 elementary, 265 high school and 96 college students, according to records from the Mandaue City government.
Most of them, like Bantog, lost all their material possessions to the fire.
And like Bantog, students like Shiela Jade Cabasag, 12, and Kimberly Lauron, 16, would also now have to rely on the goodness of donors for their school supplies.
In Bantog’s case, she only has her maternal grandmother, Nida Gerebese, to rely on. Bantog was only three years old, and her siblings even younger, when their parents left them to the care of their grandmother. The siblings never heard from their parents since.
Gerebese, now 62, is a member of the Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program (4Ps) of the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) and receives around P2,000 a month in educational and health aid for her grandchildren. But the money is not enough now since she would now need to buy the kids new uniforms and school supplies.
Bantog said she felt sorry that her grandmother has to go through so much hardship to raise her and her siblings in the last 13 years.
“Promise nako sa akong nanay (grandmother) nga makahuman kog eskuyla aron makabawos ko niya (I promise my grandmother that I will finish my studies so I can give back to her for all that she has done for me),” Bantog said.
Unlike Bantog, Cabasag, an incoming Grade 7 student also at CNHS, has both her parents with her and is grateful that her family remains intact and unhurt by the fire.
Lauron, who is also going to school at CNHS, likewise also considers herself lucky that her father, a garbage collector, and stay-home mother are still around to provide for some of her and her four other younger siblings’ needs even as they continue to live in a small tent inside the CICC grounds.
“Bisan sa nahitabo, kinahanglan magpadayon gihapon ko sa pag-eskuyla ug pasalamat gihapon mi nga kumpleto mi (Whatever happens, I have to go to school and I am thankful that my family remains complete),” she said.
Her mother, Maribel Lauron, said that with her husband earning only around P3,000 a month, the coming months will be extremely difficult, especially with all her five children — two in elementary and three in high school — now back in school.
Thankfully, some of the burden of the Lauron, Bantog and Cabasag school children were eased by the Gig and the Amazing Sampaguita Foundation Inc. (GASFI), which, on Saturday went to the CICC for a read-aloud and book-giving program that included giving away school supplies to the fire victims.
Maribel, holding back tears, was thankful that there were people who would still want to help them even after three months have passed since the fire razed their homes.
Karina Ros Jayme, coordinator of GASFI, said the goal of their foundation is to spread the message that everyone should read books and everyone should learn how to be close with the family.
Jason Quilaquil, youth pastor of the Apostolic Church and a GASFI volunteer, believed everything that happened to the fire victims has a reason.
“Pailob lang, naa man gyud nang pagsulay. Wala man ta kahibawo unsay kabubut-on sa Ginoo. Mohatag tag love sa matag usa ug importante nga mag-ampo,” Quilaquil said.
(Let us be patient in the midst of trials. We don’t know the will of God. Let us be generous with our love for one another and it is important that we pray.)
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