Itbayat folk busy rebuilding even during Yuletide season

NO RESPITE Margarita Manzo, 85, carries wood by herself as she and her fellow villagers in Itbayat, Batanes, rebuild their quake-hit homes. —NATHAN ALCANTARA

ITBAYAT, Batanes, Philippines — For this island town, the nippy weather has brought the yuletide cheers to residents who are still busy rebuilding from the devastation wrought by a succession of earthquakes that struck on July 27.

December is “winter” for them because of the relatively chilly weather, with temperatures dropping to below 15°C.

Children go out to share carols, a practice called “minharana,” on Christmas Eve before the town holds its “Sagrada Familia” community feast.

But “disaster relief” continues to be the byword for residents, who are still engaged in carpentry work as the holidays set in.

Last weekend, they received their share of donations — smooth sided wood, bundles of 5-inch steel pipe posts, galvanized iron (GI) sheets, nails and other construction materials.

The town also received relief items like 150 pails donated by the Inquirer Foundation that were unloaded with the construction materials at Port Valanga here from two motorized bancas, known as “faluwa.”

Volunteer groups from villages, the police, the Coast Guard, local Marines and members of the Civilian Active Auxiliary Army, helped load the donations into small trucks that carried them to the town’s poblacion for distribution.

Margarita Manzo, 85, pulled out the wood by herself on Monday afternoon, but was happy when the soldiers helped her. Each resident received two steel pipes, 32 pieces of smooth wood, 30 GI sheets, three kilos of assorted nails and a small toilet bowl.

Diesel supply

On Dec. 20, soldiers and town employees unloaded plastic drums filled with diesel from the faluwa. But Mayor Raul de Sagon said he had reservations because diesel fuel was supposed to be delivered by suppliers directly to the National Power Corp. (Napocor) oil depot here.

From Nov. 24 to the second week of December, low diesel supply prompted Napocor generators to reduce operations to five hours, so Itbayat had electricity only from 5 p.m. to 10 p.m.

The 23 drums contained 13,000 liters of fuel which were sufficient for a 16-hour operation until the first two weeks of January.

De Sagon said there was enough power for Christmas and New Year’s Day.

Baguio gift-giving

In Baguio, residents fulfilled the wishes of the city’s children, most of them from poor families.

The gift-giving drive initiated by the Baguio Tourism Council (BTC) was the first “and could be conducted periodically now that we know how many of us are willing to give,” said Rosalie Castro, a volunteer from the Social Security System.

One of the beneficiaries was an 11-year-old boy who was abandoned by his father. Castro bought a pair of pink shoes for an 11-year-old girl with special needs. The girl’s mother sells goods at the Baguio public market.

The BTC drew volunteers from all sectors, among them professionals, and assembled nine soup kitchens at Burnham Park for 200 children.