COTABATO CITY—The cold weather on the eve of June 14 brought shivers to 7-month-old Datu while his equally frail-looking 19-month-old brother Saidamin burned with a high fever.
The unforgiving Liguasan wetlands with massive hyacinths flowing over the banks of a tributary that feeds into Rio Grande de Mindanao, soaked Asrap Eskak’s children as the rest in the village of Gambal in Kabuntalan town wait in dread because of the rising floodwaters.
Eskak estimated he had more than 6 feet of water in his shack made from corroded tin, cushioned with worn off rubber, sitting on the banks of the marshland.
“Sittie, hurry! It’s time to flee or we die here,” Eskak, 23, told his wife at around 3 a.m.
He searched for the paddle, and sailed away with his young family into the surging marsh. While clutching her babies, Sittie, 21, clung to whatever shabby clothes they were able to cram into a soiled sack.
Shortly before sunrise, the family, along with Sittie’s mother and another uncle, hopped into the boat and negotiated the swelling marsh.
Escape to safety
“It was as if another war had hit us, everybody sped off too suddenly to safer ground with their boats,” Eskak recalled.
Before sunrise, the family reached safety in a two-story house that his uncle maintained near the city’s old wet market. “My kids felt warmer this time, away from the danger of the flood,” Eskak said.
Now, Eskak’s problem is how to raise his children in a city so foreign to him.
“How is it to live here, even for a moment?” he asked. “In Gambal, I had the entire marsh to fish, even enjoying the simplest of life.”
The family could live on P100 a day in Gambal.
Eskak scoured the inner city villages drenched in water, and found that he could benefit from it.
P10 a ride
“I pushed my boat near the university stretch and offered commuters P10 a ride,” he said.
Since last week, his daily earnings would reach P200, enough to cover milk, and some savings for the family.
Eskak may have found a little luck, but he is apologetic to the over 288,000 (65,705 families) flood victims crammed in 40 temporary camps across the region, their houses either washed away or submerged.
At Cotabato City Pilot Elementary School alone, some 890 families are living a cramped existence inside the gymnasium—all asking for food, medicines and a daily ration of clean water.
“Right now, we place our priority on food,” said Nora Dianal, city social welfare officer. “How do we feed a family with nine members? We simply don’t have enough,” she said.
She is irked at “food shoppers” who are not actually flood victims. “They pretend to be victims and ask for rice,” she said.
‘Real families’
To differentiate, Dianal and other volunteers do their rounds at night to check on “real families” who deserve to get the supplies.
Food packs contain 5 kilograms of rice, three canned sardines, and three packs of noodles.
Bai Zorahayda Taha, director of Department of Social Welfare and Development for Central Mindanao, told the Inquirer that a total of P5.9 million worth of supplies had been distributed to the victims. “Our evacuation sites are all monitored, and we assure the victims there is no shortage of food and supplies for them.”
Other agencies have stepped in to complement local efforts, including the United Nations Children’s Fund, Tabang Mindanaw, GMA 7, Red Cross and others from neighboring towns which have pooled their resources to distribute blankets, medicines and soap.
“These are not enough,” said volunteer Aimee Ukas, whose family fled their swamped home in Poblacion 3. “We need more as children are made to sleep in cartons, making them prone to cough and colds, and diarrhea. And we need a more ready supply of water.”
Water ration
Currently, the City Bureau of Fire and Protection rations water supply twice daily, but this is not enough to fill all their buckets, according to Ukas.
Army Col. Prudencio Asto, spokesperson for the military’s 6th Infantry Division, said government troops and civilian volunteers continue to remove the water hyacinths that clog the river.
Some 800 soldiers and civilians have so far cleared a wide portion under the Delta Bridge. Even at night, work continues as the military set up lights around the bridge.
“Right now, only about 10 low-lying villages out of 37 barangays are heavily submerged in water,” Asto said.
In Barangay Tanwil in Datu Odin Sinsuat town in nearby Maguindanao, Babu Anisa Humpay’s property was lost to 7 feet of mud and water.
“Our mosques, schools, our farms, are all flooded. We can’t do anything about this,” Humpay said.
“When will this end? Will this always happen?” he asked in Filipino.
Catch basin
Cotabato Archbishop Orlando Quevedo, chair of the Presidential Task Force in Mindanao River Basin, said the flood in Cotabato City was triggered by the overflowing of the Liguasan marshland, which serves as the catch basin of river water from North Cotabato, Bukidnon, Davao del Sur and Sultan Kudarat.
The flood, including debris and water hyacinths, ended up choking waterways around the city and its environs.
Quevedo appealed to good Samaritans to extend help for the displaced families, some of whom have already contracted various diseases, mostly respiratory and bowel disorders, and skin rashes.
Even with the brief relief because of the receding floodwater, displaced residents remain in evacuation centers, or with relatives and friends living on higher ground.
At least 10 people have died in the floods.