Zamboanga City — On September 9 at 4 a.m., my husband woke me up. He said, “Wake up. There are members of the MNLF outside.”

I opened our window, and sure enough, there were Moro National Liberation Front members marching outside. There were about 100 to 200 of them. At the front were older men. At the last were children, about 17 to 18 years old. All were wearing camouflage uniforms. Armed.

My husband told me to wake the children and to start packing our things. I told him, “They are probably just marching. They won’t do anything.”

By 5 a.m., there were more of them arriving.

By 6 a.m., we heard gunshots. I did not know this at the time, but most of my neighbors have already evacuated by then.

My husband asked me, “Why aren’t you packing?” I said, “If it’s your time, it’s your time, regardless of where you might be.” He berated me, saying, “Why are you saying that? You have our children to think of.” I questioned why we had to leave. I repeated, “If it’s your time to die, it’s your time to die, no matter where you might be.”

I started preparing breakfast for our children. I have five. My eldest is 18 years old, followed by 16, 13, and 10. My youngest is 8 years old.

The onset

We live in a squatters area in Sta. Barbara called Ayer Village, so the houses are tightly adjacent to each other. My relatives, who live next door, went to our house, because our home was made of concrete and theirs was not. My relatives, including their many kids, stayed in our kitchen.

I felt like I was in the feeding program of the DSWD as I prepared the children’s breakfast.

I called up Regional Director Zenaida Arevalo and informed her there are MNLF members in my area. Then, I heard an exchange of gunfire.

After a few minutes, DSWD Undersecretary Parisya Taradji is calling me. She found out that I live in Sta. Barbara from an officemate, and she advised me to leave with my children immediately and head to somewhere safe.

By 9 o’clock, the gunfire started again.

My husband told us to escape through Sta. Catalina because we cannot go through Sta. Barbara anymore with the military already there.

I was expecting we would be back home by that afternoon, so all I brought was my shoulder bag and two bags of my children.

I was watching the television to monitor what was happening. I found out that they were taking hostages in Sta. Catalina, which was where we would be passing through

We left the house at about 11 or 12 o’clock. We even actually were able to have lunch, which I prepared myself, before we left.

I remember telling my family, “Regardless of what may happen, at least we are able to have lunch so we won’t be hungry.” I said jokingly.

I was also able to clean the house before we left. I had this funny feeling while I was washing the dishes that this would be my last time to use my sink, but I shook myself. “Why would I think of that idea?,” I asked myself.

My husband, my children, and I headed off to San Jose Claret where my in-laws are, while my mother and my brother went to Mampang. I saw a lot of people were evacuating.

Sta. Barbara has a high population. Muslims have close family ties, so it is not unlikely for families to live side by side. I saw the large number of people, and I felt pity.

“Where will they go?,” I thought. “What if they don’t have relatives nearby?”

It was a good thing that my cellphone has a radio. I heard the announcement that the grandstand was accepting evacuees so I told my neighbors, “If you have nowhere to go, proceed to the grandstand.” I knew that some of them had nowhere else to go to.

The number of evacuees at the grandstand started to swell by the minute. I knew I had to help.

Evacuee helping evacuees

I left the home of the in-laws and headed to the grandstand. We were the ones who set up the community kitchen.

I spent the first night of the conflict without my family. I was at the grandstand helping people.

My husband told me, “You’re an evacuee. You left our children here.” I told him, “Please take care of them since you’re there. This is my job.”

On that first night, a stampede almost broke out because the people were hungry. A lot of them were not able to have breakfast because they fled their homes early morning. The policemen extracted us, “Ma’am, please get out.”

The problem was, the people were no longer listening to the police. They became almost unruly and very uncontrollable. I could not blame them, though. They were hungry. Some children told me, “Ma’am, we haven’t eaten since this morning.” I felt for them because I am also a victim like them.

By 5 a.m. the following day, more evacuees are coming in. There were about 10,000 of them by now. I myself had doubts if we can feed all of them. They were that many. Luckily, there were nuns who helped us cook and the city government also brought food. We were the ones who served the food, combination of bread, cup noodles, and cooked food from the city government. The city welfare officer arrived not soon after to start assessing the evacuees.

I went home at 6:00 a.m. the following day just to take a bath, but I headed out again because I needed to check my clients at the Processing Center for Displaced Persons, which is located in Mampang, one of the critical areas. My husband told me, “Why are you being so fearless about going there?”

I replied, “It would be shameful if I did not check up on them. I was able to go to the people at the grandstand, so I should also visit them.” So off I went to to PDCP to check my clients.

Fire

I went back to the grandstand after. It was then that I saw that the fires started. I called my brother, telling him, “I think there is a fire in Sta. Barbara”.

I went back to our house there to see if I could salvage some of our things.

By then, the exchange of gunfire has become intense. My husband scolded me. “Are you going to risk your life just for a few things? We can still buy new ones. What is important are our lives.” But he eventually agreed to come with me.

When we went there, there were MNLF members along the streets. I wore my tirong so they will be able to identify me as a Muslim, but I still kept my face on the ground so they won’t think of me as a prospective hostage.

When I saw our things, I realized just how heavy these were, and I would need to carry these for 30 minutes to get out of the area. My husband suggested that we just leave them in our house instead of moving them out as they could easily be stolen.

I did not want to just leave them there, especially since some of our stuff are new.

I tried hailing jeepneys outside our home, but none of the drivers agreed to help me, even though I offered them to name the price. They told me, “Ma’am, we will not go in that area no matter how much you pay us”.

I remember looking at the trucks and the jeepneys in front of my neighbors’ houses, and I thought to myself how advantageous it would have been if we had our own means of transport. Their vehicles were filled with things from their houses, while I brought almost nothing out of our home.

When I went out carrying my child’s bag, one MNLF member went up to me and said, “Ma’am, that looks heavy. I’ll help you carry it.”

He helped me bring it to Sta. Catalina.

My husband scolded me for that. “Why did you let the MNLF carry your bag?” I said, “Because he offered to.” I smiled.

Son

I called my brother again, and we, along with our mother, went back to the house to see if we can carry more things.

At about 5 p.m., there was a young boy riding a motorcycle who arrived, and he told the MNLF members in Yakan dialect, “The military is about to enter the village.” The boy was wearing civilian clothes. He was about my son’s age, I remember thinking.

The MNLF announced that all of the civilians should leave. My husband tried to hurry me along, but I told him, “I can’t leave my mother alone.” She’s 61 years old.

We ended up not being able to bring any of our things with us, except for my child’s school uniform and a DSWD shirt. The DSWD vest I’ve been wearing the past days is not even mine – I just borrowed it from someone in the office.

Not, not feel the need to help

I have been working in the relief operations since the first day, because I could empathize with the evacuees.

In truth, I do not even have to do this. As the center head, I could have just stayed at my center. But then, in times like this, you could not not feel the need to help. I do not even want to be assigned to a specific role for the relief operations. I would always say, “I’m a freelancer.”

I would go where my services are needed. On some days, I would be working at the grandstand. I would do intake interviews or take charge of the release of family access cards. On others, I would be helping the community-based evacuees. I also continue to monitor my clients at the center. If I see that they are doing okay, I would go back to the operations center and see what areas will need my help.

My clients from the center later on were forced to evacuate from the PCDP. We brought them to the Home for Women. I would check up on them every day after coming from the grandstand, especially since I would get occasional text messages telling me that some of them had misunderstandings with each other or got sick. There were times when I also had to bring them to the hospital when they got ill.  I still visited them even at the height of conflict.

In spite of the things that I have done, I feel like I could do so much more.

It was over the radio that I first found out that our home was one of the structures that were burned down. The huge fire happened on the Thursday of the first week of conflict. I half-expected that to happen, because there were a lot of MNLF members in that area.

It hurts

Deep inside, it hurts. I spent years working hard to establish our home. Also, I grew up in that place. I just tell myself God has a reason for all these things.

When things settle down, I do not think I will go back to Ayer Village. A lot of people like Sta. Barbara because it is accessible to the city proper, including the schools, the hospitals, and the offices. You can actually walk to the mall from there. My mother, my father, and my brother might go back there, but I do not think I’ll be able to return with them. I will probably have a new house constructed somewhere in Talon-Talon.

Never getting tired

We will have to start from scratch though, since we barely saved any of our things before the fire.

The experience traumatized me. I do not think I can see huge fires again without getting scared. It is actually frightening how people got used to the fires here. On the first and second days, people got nervous whenever they saw homes being burned down. After that, it became almost normal to see smoke rising in the air. What made the situation worse was that the firemen could not enter the areas to put out the fires because these were critical places. That was the situation here at the height of the conflict.

I was in denial when I first heard that our house burned down. It was only when I saw a photograph on Facebook of the aerial view of Ayer Village and saw that our area was affected that it sunk in, and I cried.

I went home at 4 p.m. that day. My children told me, “It’s a miracle that you went home at this time,” because I haven not been coming home early.

I cried when our house burned down, but I decided to keep on working. I have not had a proper rest since the start of the conflict. I have been working almost non-stop.

But I like it like that. Working actually helps me. If I just stayed at home, I might go crazy thinking about what we’ve lost. It’s better if I continue to work – at least I get that feeling of contentment that I was able to help people.  I have always been the kind of person who likes working and who does not like resting. I want to be of service and help others. I will never get tired of doing that. ###