Tough life below the bridge

When heavy rains fall, Laila Casio’s family heads for higher ground.

After years of living under a concrete bridge, her family of ten is used to evacuating when needed. Home is a wooden shanty on stilts ten steps away from Kinalumsan river in barangay Duljo Fatima, Cebu City.

During the downpour last July 20, a Saturday night, water flooded their house.

“Pag saka dayon sa tubig ako dayon gi-una akong mga apo og pasaka sa taas para safe sila didto”. (When the river started to rise, we immediately moved our three grand children to higher ground for safety),” said 62-year-old Casio .

Moving “upstairs”  means transferring to her small stall on the bridge in Spoliarium Street where she sells cigarettes daily. The family’s ten members spent the night in the stall with tarpaulin sheets for a roof and walls. “Ga lisod jud me og saka pa jud kay na guba man among hagdanan.” (We had difficulty getting up to the bridge because our ladder was destroyed) , she said.

When the water reached the second storey of their shanty, the family fled, leaving behind what few clothes and belongings they owned.

The next day,  the shanty was a bare shell with missing plywood floor boards and a wooden post. Only one towel and four garments were left hanging outside the house.

Casio’s husband Venancio, 63, earns less than P100 a day delivering water.

The family has lived under the bridge for more than ten years. Six children live with them.  Another household  under the bridge squeezes four families in a small shanty.

If there are kind-hearted people who would offer them a relocation, said Laila, they would be happy to move out of this hazardous zone.

Each time they experience a flood, it’s the same cycle, she said.

“After the flood, we clean up.”/Correspondent  Michelle Joy L. Padayhag