Quick mission to Busao

Not all relief operations need a big organization, but they need big hearts – and determination.

A circle of friends, professionals based in Cebu City, pooled funds to bring aid to a barangay cut off by the earthquake in Maribojoc town, central Bohol.

Over the weekend, two women volunteers set out for barangay Busao, an expedition by pumpboat through the Abatan river where boatmen had no map other than directions by cellphone and the advice of passing fishermen.

Within two days after the Oct. 15 Tuesday earthquake, 20 friends had raised P100,000 and shopped for supplies to prepare 1,000 relief packages. Each pack had bottled water, a loaf of bread, ready-to-eat food and rice.

By Saturday morning, the two women were on their way.

The lightning response was similar to their trip last year after typhoon Pablo. Four women friends, bringing boxes of food, water, tarpaulin sheets and toys for evacuee children, found their way to an isolated town in Mindanao after getting an SOS call from a friend.

“This is different from Mindanao because my relatives are from Bohol. It’s close to my heart,” said a private school teacher. Although she has no kinfolk in Busao, the parish priest is a friend.

(For this story, none of the volunteers wanted to be named when they let a Cebu Daily News reporter and photographer, who were heading to Bohol on assignment, tag along.)

Weesam Shipping gave free passage for 50 boxes of bottled water and assorted cargo from Cebu to Tagbilaran city port.

From there, the two women chartered a pumpboat for Maribojoc town since the national highway was not passable with its bridge collapsed.

For two hours on sea, the group looked for the passageway to the Abatan river. The boatmen, who handled island hopping tours for tourists, were not familiar with the route. They had to rely on directions relayed by cellphone from the group’s contact “Jonas” in Busao. The signal was choppy.

Passing fishermen gave directions for a path that zigzagged through mangroves and narrow bodies of the brackish river. It took another hour to find the right tributary after reaching several dead ends in the river.

Past 2 p.m. the pumpboat stopped at the broken Abatan bridge. Supplies were unloaded onto nine small motorized boats. At first none of the boatmen wanted to ferry the goods, until the volunteers said they would pay. That cost P1,000 per boat.

A few aftershocks were felt in the hour-long water trip. Heavy with cargo, each small boat floated just a palm’s height abover the river. Nobody wanted to make sudden moves to avoid tipping the boat over.

After unloading at a wooden pier in Busao, supplies were handcarried in a trek through thick trees and rice fields. Male villagers met the group and took turns as porters. This time no one asked for a fee. They passed farmers’ houses levelled to the ground.

At the parish community center, people were waiting with big smiles.

“Maajong hapon, ninjo,” they said with some anxiety. “Thank you” ended almost each sentence.

It was the first time relief goods had reached barangay Busao.

Survivors stayed in makeshift tents and crowded into a day care classroom. The roof of the church, renovated two years ago, had collapsed and its walls fell after the earthquake. Deep cracks appear on the basketball court floor.

Residents lined up to receive their relief packs handed out by the two female volunteers, whose sweaty faces still had smiles.

Outstretched hands received for each family a plastic pouch of cooked rice with fried chicken and meatballs, a litre of water, a loaf of bread and one kilo of uncooked rice.

In less than 20 minutes the relief goods were gone. As expected the supplies were not enough. But residents still shared what they received with those unable to line up. The parish priest was grateful for the lightning mission.

“It was just something we had to do as concerned citizens,” said one of the two volunteers, who works as a business consultant in Cebu.

Before sunset, the women trekked back to the pier to head home.

Today, other volunteers in their circle of friends are heading for Bohol again, a second wave with similar donations and no fanfare. /Dale G. Israel, Senior Reporter