A second lease on life
A YEAR AFTER YOLANDA

“A second house, a second lease on life,” was how 31-year-old Marilou Marpa summed up the blessings she and her family received a year after they almost died from Yolanda’s wrath in Molocaboc Island, a 428-hectare fishing village in Sagay City, Negros Occidental.

Like Marilou’s family, hundreds of others in Molocaboc, who were left homeless and impoverished by the super typhoon, are now full of optimism and ready to face the future with renewed confidence, a year after Yolanda’s fury, a press release from the Task Force Mapalad said.

Hope began to rise in Molocaboc when the typhoon victims started receiving humanitarian assistance from TFM and its foreign partners, ICCO, ACT Alliance, and Kerk in Actie, two months after they were battered and bruised by Yolanda, it said.

Marpa said her family initially received from the donors food rations, such as 25 kilos of rice, noodles, beans, canned goods, dried fish, coffee, and milk. She said household utensils, such as pots, pans, ladles, and spoons and forks were also donated to them by the groups.

The help did not just end in giving relief goods. Hundreds of houses in Molocaboc, that were either washed away or totally damaged by Yolanda, were replaced with disaster-resilient homes through the assistance of TFM-ICCO-ACT Alliance-Kerk in Actie.

Last May, a total of 324 houses were turned over by the groups to fisher folk families in sitios Diot and Matabas of Molocaboc, the press release from TFM said.

As Molocaboc rises from the ashes, residents are now looking forward to having more sustainable livelihood opportunities and strengthening their community so it can prevent hazards from becoming disasters.

“We can’t permanently rely on relief goods. What we need now are livelihood programs that can make us earn and learn other skill,” Yolanda Kawit, 56, a mother of six, said.

TMN-Negros chapter president and farmer, Alberto Jayme, said the partnership of his group with international donor agencies was a good start for Negrenses to rise from the rut of poverty and destruction caused by Yolanda. But Jayme said Negrenses would not fully become disaster-resilient without getting full support from the government.

“Disaster-resiliency means being better prepared to withstand and rapidly recover from disasters. It means saving lives and preserving livelihoods. We need adequate physical infrastructure, sustainable sources of income, and trainings to capacitate us to withstand the wrath of nature. These are the kinds of sustainable assistance that we need from the government to ensure that we will be resilient no matter how strong and destructive the next storms will be,” Jayme said in the press release.

He urged the Department of Agrarian Reform to fast-track the distribution of lands and provision of support services to farmer-beneficiaries of the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program, especially to those who were hardest hit by Yolanda and those living in other areas that are most vulnerable to disasters.

TFM said that, based on data from the DAR, 23 percent or 174,753 hectares of the nationwide CARP balance of 771,000 hectares are found in six provinces in the Visayas worst hit by Yolanda.

These are Negros Occidental – 100,395 hectares, Leyte – 21,657 hectares, Masbate – 15,500 hectares, Iloilo – 15,060 hectares, Negros Oriental – 11,142 hectares, and Capiz – 11,000 hectares, the press release said.

TFM, ICCO, ACT Alliance, and Kerk in Actie have decided to join and help Molocaboc residents in their next phase of challenge.

On Saturday, the first anniversary of Yolanda, the groups announced that they would extend human assistance to the people of Molocaboc to help them lead more sustainable lives and develop a community that is more resilient to extreme weather events like Yolanda, the press release said.

At the Matabas Primary School, a groundbreaking ceremony was held for the construction of two multi-purpose centers and 10 communal toilets for residents of sitios Diot and Matabas, it also said.

The disaster-resilient multi-purpose buildings may be used by the island residents as evacuation centers in times of disasters, or as classrooms and function halls for community meetings, trainings, and other community development activities, it added.

Also, representatives from TFM, ICCO, ACT Alliance, and Kerk in Actie announced during the event that residents of the sitios would be provided with 176 giant water jars.

These household-level rainwater collector systems, with a capacity of 3,000 liters per jar, are expected to meet the water demands of the community, provide the village with cost-effective solution for the collection and recycling of wastewater, and promote self-sustainability.

The groups will also build 24 additional shelters for residents of the two sitios and distribute 113 fishing gears, the press release added.*

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Dayaw Festival
kicks off today

The Dayaw Festival 2014 kicks off at the Negros Occidental Multi-Purpose Activity Center in Bacolod City today.

A parade will be held at 8 a.m. followed by the opening ceremonies at 9 a.m. and a media forum at 10 a.m.

Other activities are an arts and crafts exhibit, cooking demo and food tasting, traditional games and a recognition of cultural masters in the evening.

Tomorrow there will be an interaction between cultural masters and crafts producers, outreach performances at the Bago City College, Negros Occidental High School, Silay City and Visayan Maritime Academy, and the closing rites in the evening.

The festival in Bacolod that will be participated in by indigenous groups of Central Philippines, has been organized by the National Commission for Culture and the Arts and the Negros Cultural Foundation, Inc. with the provincial government of Negros Occidental.

The Bacolod celebration is part of the nationwide celebration of Dayaw 2004 : The Indigenous Peoples Festival, which will have events in Luzon and Mindanao.

Its theme is “Katutubong Filipino Para sa Kalikasan at Kapayapaan” (Indigenous Filipino for the Environment and Peace).

Tanya Lopez, executive director of the Negros Museum, said the activity will give people a chance to interact and learn from the indigenous people.

Rodrigo Cornejo, vice head of the NCCA National Committee on Communications, said they hope to gather more than 2,000 people to fill up NOMPAC. One will see 100 performances from the IPs. It will not just be a simple ceremony, but it will be an entertaining and learning experience, he said.

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