Stress debriefings offered to Zambo folk

THE Philippine Mental Health Association (PMHA) Cebu Chapter is willing to conduct stress debriefings to the 60 Zamboanga City refugees who have been staying in Cebu City since last week.

PMHA-Cebu chapter president Dr. Glenda Basubas said the children are especially vulnerable to post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) after witnessing the fighting in Zamboanga city.

Unless treated, Basubas said the adult refugees and their children would experience emotional numbing and autonomic hyperactivity or paranoia at the slightest sound of explosions in severe cases.

Emotional numbness

She said children would relieve their memory of the fighting by playing shooting games. Emotional numbness for children, Basubas said, would cause them to occasionally black out and forget what they did afterwards.

She said one treatment for children is play therapy where they work out their emotions through games, dances and drawings. Basubas said group therapy sessions are suited for adults.

Malo Manonggiring, director of the National Commission on Muslim Filipinos said he and his staff met with their members living in Cebu to help the Zamboanga city refugees who came to Cebu.

Manonggiring assured the Cebuanos that the Zambo refugees are harmless and they are here to escape the armed conflict in Zamboanga city.

“Definitely, they are not members of the MNLF (Moro National Liberation Front). They are harmless,” Manonggiring said, adding that they gave clothing to the refugees. Correspondent Christine Emily L. Pantaleon