‘Reming’ survivors still crying for help

29 March 2007
By Ephraim Aguilar
Daraga, Albay

IT WAS ALMOST DUSK AND THE crisp, cool air outside the tents pitched in the grounds of the elementary school in the village of Tagas, Daraga, Albay, provided a welcome relief to Arlene Llorca.

Intermittent rains had forced the 44-year-old woman to stay inside her dwelling and endure the heat while she embroidered a woven bag.

A handicraft worker, Llorca and her family of six had occupied one of the classrooms in December last year. Lahar brought down by Supertyphoon “Reming” from Mount Mayon buried her house a few days before. They moved to one of the tents when classes resumed in January after a month’s suspension.

A neighbor, Amelia Quinalayo, 48, was not as “lucky.” She shares a tent with two to three other families.

“It’s hard to live with other families in one tent. Our children always get sick with colds or fever because of too much heat. Rainwater also drips inside our tents on rainy days,” Quinalayo lamented.

Like most of the other 471 families (2,127 people) from the two zones in Tagas who have been encamped in 47 other tents and 165 shanties, Llorca and Quinalayo have no choice but to adjust to their new environment—or what disaster officials call “temporary shelters.”

Almost four months after “Reming” struck the village, almost 300,000 families still live in these conditions.

Local government officials had told Llorca and Quinalayo that it would take two years before permanent relocation sites could be established. But Med Villanueva, liaison officer of Ayuda Albay, which oversees relief and rehabilitation efforts, said the period was merely an “optimistic” assumption.

Ayuda Albay, which was created through Executive Order 2007-1 of the provincial government to address the long-term needs of the typhoon survivors, has counted on the expertise and resources of over 27 member-organizations from the international nongovernment sector, which have been working in the cluster areas of shelter, food, education, livelihood, health, logistics and transport, and evacuation and transit center.

Gap in donations

One of the main problems they face is the acute lack of NGO help. “Many have given support but many are also pulling out one by one,” said Villanueva.

Regarding the survivors’ shelter needs, much “ayuda” (Bicol term for help) needs to be done immediately and the government needs to move fast, she said.

A study conducted by the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (Ocha) from Feb. 5 to March 2 showed that the local Red Cross and other agencies had resettled families in only 6.9 percent or 21,357 housing units of the 309,518 destroyed houses. This meant a “significant” gap of 288,161 housing units.

The UN country team is crying out for being “under-funded.”

IOM plans

The International Organization for Migration (IOM), which is part of the UN team, plans to decongest 13 schools still being used as evacuation centers.

“There is a pressing need to decongest these shelters. We hope to move the people out of the tents and build temporary houses for them while they wait for the permanent ones being built by the government and other organizations. This is also to mitigate health issues in congested camps,” said Ida Mae Fernandez, IOM project officer.

Fernandez said the group was looking for public land to be leased for them to build temporary shelters. The UN team, she said, had been working through a special consolidated fund of $42 million, of which 25 percent was already spent for emergency relief (the first stage of disaster response) and 75 percent was being used for early recovery programs.

Albay not OK

“We are in need of additional funds. We, in the IOM, need $1 million more to rearrange and rebuild the congested camps and provide some livelihood for the people,” she said.

The IOM now operates on a $250,000 (P1.24 million) grant from the UN Central Emergency Response Fund and a 550,000-Euro (P36-million) funding from the European Commission Humanitarian Aid Office.

It mainly offers logistics and transport to other organizations and donors who do not have the capacity to carry their goods to Bicol.

“We are in need of more funds for recovery. If we do not get funds for livelihood and shelter of thousands of people, what can we look forward to?” Villanueva said.

“Everyone thinks Albay is OK and is springing back to life. But the truth is, we are not any closer to recovery. We still need help. And we make sure that help is directly brought to its intended beneficiaries.”