18 December 2006
By Ephraim Aguilar
Inquirer Southern Luzon
LEGAZPI CITY—TWO WEEKS AFTER Supertyphoon “Reming” ravaged the Bicol region, survivors now living in refugee camps still have to recover from the trauma and stress that the tragedy brought to their lives.
At Gogon Elementary School, where more than 450 displaced families from Barangay Padang in this city were housed, traces of weaknesses among the survivors have begun to emerge.
Jun-jun Abella, a counseling psychologist of Mararahay Ka (You will get well), a treatment facility that caters primarily to the psychosocial needs of addicts but, at this time, of lahar victims in Padang, said the dominant feelings now among the survivors were anger, fear, sadness and guilt.
A 5 to 6-year old child who lost a three-year old sister won’t talk. Another child bangs his head on the wall and floor during the night blaming himself for the death of his younger siblings.
These were just two of the many stories Abella recalled from the stress debriefing sessions they have been conducting for more than four days now.
The Mararahay Ka counseling sessions and stress debriefing activities for children and adults in Gogon are being run by Abella, 38, and two other staff members—RJ Seguenza, 35, and Francis Paner, 38. All three were former drug dependents who were able to overcome their addiction and start their lives anew.
Drawings
Paner and Seguenza would begin the sessions with physical exercises and group singing. Then the children were given paper and crayons for them to draw their experiences during the disaster and express their feelings through drawings.
Abella said the children’s varying degrees of experiences and emotions were reflected in the drawings.
“Having witnessed this scene during the tragedy is tantamount to having experienced abuse. It may have caused fear on the child that has to be properly dealt with,” he added, as he pointed to a child’s artwork drawn with a red pen.
The drawing: Three clouds, drops of rain, a battered tree, a house without signs of damage, which seemed like just an ordinary scene after a typhoon. But in the lower part were 15 horizontal bodies being helplessly washed away by lahar. It was drawn by a child who lost 16 of his kin when torrents of sand and boulders swamped Barangay Padang on Nov. 30.
After the art session, the facilitators would let the children form a circle and help them “process” what they had drawn, asking them how they felt.
A small girl suddenly hid under her blouse and cried after confessing she had lost her parents.
Some children, and even adults, have developed fear of water after the floods. There was a little girl who would severely chill every time she got wet, Seguenza said.
Many children also do not want to return to their villages anymore. Some labeled their drawings “Malungkot” (Sad) or “Natatakot” (Fearful).
Blaming God
Abella said they were also conducting group and individual counseling sessions for the parents of the children.
He added that while many adult victims felt extreme sadness, anger and guilt after losing their children, they also were angry with God, blaming Him for the disaster that happened.
Abella said a man who lost his wife and other children is now questioning God’s existence.
Abella would ask a common question to the survivors during the sessions, “Why do you think you were destined to survive?”
“I would want the survivors to realize there is a reason why they were not buried by the lahar and that they still have a special purpose to fulfill,” he said.
Shades of hope
While many of the children’s drawings reflected shades of utter despair and fear, Abella said, there were also those that showed hope.
A few children still managed to draw flowers and the sun while there were those who drew higher houses, which could not be reached by floods.
Some 62 were killed while 163 were still missing in Barangay Padang, said the Provincial Disaster Coordinating Council in Albay.
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