A n oxygen tank for his asthma keeps 70-year-old Natalio Siclot in his shack.
After his shanty along Mahiga Creek was demolished by clearing crew on orders of City Hall last month, Siclot and his wife, Rosita, moved a few meters away to a roadside in barangay Mabolo, where they put to together plywood boards and tarpualin sheets.
In this makeshift shelter, exposed to the road dust, Natalio’s asthma attacks worsened.
Siclot was one of the last of 39 households cleared out of a portion of the Mahiga Creek by the Squatters Prevention Elimination and Encroachment Division (Speed).
While discussions in City Hall continue about finding a relocation site for displaced settlers, Siclot and his wife do their best to get by.
Rosita said she considered sending her husband home to Tabogon town, northern Cebu.
But with his dependence on the oxygen tank to breathe, they can’t move out.
In the province, their home in barangay Mabuli is two kilometers from the national highway and reached by a rough road.
She said it would be difficult to deliver an oxygen tank there when the supply runs out. Natalio consumes about two tanks a week.
They could stock up but the couple can’t afford to buy several tanks at a cost of P600 per tank.
With their small eatery demolished, they lost a daily source of income and rely on handouts from their adult children.
The power line was also cut, forcing them to tap a neighbor’s house connection to keep the oxygen tank’s regulator functioning.
City disaster committee chief Alvin Santillana offered to send Natalio to the Cebu City Medical Center (CCMC) for treatment but Rosita turned down the offer.
She said no one could attend to the old man in the hospital.
Rosita said she had to stay put near the ruins of their house by the creek to safeguard the salvaged materials.
“We can’t leave the wood and galvanized iron sheets here because they might be lost. If we l go back to the province, his oxygen and medicines may run out and the transportation fare is very expensive,” Rosita told Cebu Daily News in Cebuano.
Two of their children live nearby but their situation is worse.
They, too, live along the Mahiga Creek across the water on the Mandaue City’s side.
When it rains, even a 20-minute downpour causes knee-deep flooding.
Rosita said they know they live in a danger zone but have nowhere else to go where they can earn a living and live in peace.
The Cebu City government earlier gave them three options for relocation but they chose to stay by the creek because their means of livelihood was here.
The Department for the Welfare of the Urban Poor (DWUP) earlier brought the affected residents to possible relocation sites in upland parts of La Guardia in barangay Lahug, San Jose, in barangay Talamban, and in the mountain barangay of Budlaan.
The relocation sites are not for free. Installment payments will be arranged for those who accept the site.
“We came to the city precisely because we didn’t want to live in the mountains and now they want us to relocate in the mountains,” said Rosita, explaining her lack of interest in the sites. /by Marian Z. Codilla, Reporter