Almost a month after Supertyphoon Yolanda battered the Visayas, affected families are finding ways to achieve normalcy in their lives.
While recovery and rehabilitation efforts are being planned out, many chose to leave, temporarily or even permanently, their battered hometowns hoping to start life anew.
Others opted to stay and manage to live with what is left of their belongings.
Starting anew in Cebu City
Reo and Mechie Cagabhion are among those who left Tacloban City for Cebu via a C-130 of the Philippine Airforce.
“We came here just wanting to escape the scenes of death and devastation in Tacloban City and to start again,” the couple stated.
Despite their traumatic experience, the Cagabhions are grateful that they are all alive and together.
They are now staying in an evacuation center in Barangay Tinago, Cebu City.
The couple and fellow survivors expressed their gratitude to the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD)-Field Office VII, the Local City Social Welfare and Development Office (LCSWDO) of Cebu, and the Barangay Council of Tinago headed by Chairman Joel Garganera.
“They are all very accommodating, going out of their way to provide for our basic needs and making us feel comfortable at the evacuation center,” the couple said.
They feel like they must have been right about their decision to move to Cebu City because Reo found a new job here.
Reo, who used to work as an optical technician in an optical shop in Tacloban City was hired by its Cebu branch. His employer looked for and recommended him to the manager of the Cebu branch. He started to work last November 27.
Cherry, 9, the eldest of Reo and Menchie, said she still wanted to go back to Tacloban as she is eager to attend school again.
The couple, however, has decided to stay in Cebu for some more months just to make sure that their children have recovered from their trauma.
Hopeful in Tacloban City
Unlike the Cagabhion family, the Del Monte family, a Pantawid Pamilya beneficiary, chose to remain in Tacloban City.
Flora, the mother, expressed that they are used to being poor. Thus, they are sure to survive even if ‘Yolanda’ has taken so much from the little things they have.
The Del Monte couple has seven children, but their third child drowned during the typhoon.
“Kakayanin namin ito. Malaking maitutulong ng aming cash grant mula sa Pantawid Pamilya para makapagsimula ulit (We will survive. Our cash grants from Pantawid Pamilya will be a big help for us to start again),” Flora said with much hopefulness in her voice.
In fact, she said, her husband Nilo, has started to look for materials to reconstruct their house.
They are grateful to everyone who has offered help especially to DSWD from whom they received their first relief goods that included rice and water.
“If not for DSWD, we would have starved,” she expressed.
Gemarie, 12, one of her daughters, while washing their clothes, shared how she and her two other younger siblings enjoyed the play therapy session conducted by the DSWD staff at the Leyte National High School where they evacuated.
She remarked, “The other children said they also lost their houses but we had fun playing and drawing.”
On the other hand, 10-year old Kim Joseph Umlang, also a Pantawid Pamilya beneficiary from Bgry. 36, Sabang, Tacloban City, and the other children at the evacuation center at Kapangian Central School gamely joined the play therapy session conducted by social workers.
The children, whose innocence, optimism, and high spirits have not been dampened by ‘Yolanda,’ even asked for school supplies so they could go back to school and do writing, reading, and drawing again.#
