WORKERS siphon off bunker fuel and manually collect debris on the coast of Estancia town, Iloilo province. NESTOR P. BURGOS JR./INQUIRER VISAYAS
Lea Bacanto makes sure her cell phone is fully charged every night. Never mind if she has to go to the town center and shell out P15 per charge.
Her 14-year-old daughter Ester uses the phone as a flashlight when she studies and reviews her lessons.
“She’s frustrated that she can’t see her notes well but we have to make do with what we have. The solar-powered bulb provided to us does not last long,” Bacanto told the Inquirer inside a tent in Northern Iloilo Polytechnic State College-West Campus in Estancia town, Iloilo province.
Bacanto’s family is among the 497 families, or more than 2,000 persons who have been staying on the campus since Nov. 23 after they evacuated from Barangay Botongon, which has been severely contaminated by an oil spill.
The evacuees are staying in 36 classrooms and 137 tents donated by private groups and relief organizations.
Strong wind and huge waves brought by Supertyphoon “Yolanda” on Nov. 8 slammed a 35-megawatt power barge operated by the National Power Corp. (Napocor) into the rocky shores of the village, triggering an oil spill.
The spilled fuel is estimated at 200,000 to 900,000 liters.
Health officials have ordered the mandatory evacuation of residents within a 150-meter radius from the oil spill site after tests showed that the level of the toxic substance benzene in the air was 15 times higher than the tolerable level.
With their houses severely damaged or destroyed and most of their belongings washed way during the supertyphoon, the evacuees still depend on food and other assistance from the government and private donors a month after Yolanda ravaged Estancia and the other northern towns of Iloilo, northern Antique province and the provinces of Capiz and Aklan.
Still in the dark
Telecommunication connections have been restored in Estancia but most of northern Iloilo are still without electricity and are relying on generators.
Days after Yolanda struck, Bacanto went home from Manila, where she works as a domestic helper, to be with her husband Roger and their two teenage daughters.
“We were looking at rebuilding our house and our lives but we still cannot do that now,” she said.
Her family shares a 4×4-meter tent with two other families, or a total of 15 persons in the tent. There is a thin divider between the families but Bacanto says there is hardly any space, much less privacy.
“It also becomes cramped at night. And when it rains, the water seeps through the holes of the tent floor,” she said.
Bacanto said they had to return to their house every day to take a bath and use the toilet because the facilities at the evacuation camp couldn’t cater to the number of evacuees. Other evacuees pay P10 to take a bath and use the toilet in houses near the evacuation center.
Bacanto said they also had to regularly go home to check on their belongings because several of the abandoned houses had been ransacked.
Soaring prices
Roger drives a tricycle and earns about P100 daily. They use a part of his earnings to buy viand because they have been eating sardines and noodles for nearly a month.
But the prices of food, especially fish and vegetables, have soared in Estancia.
A kilogram of ampalaya now costs P60, or P20 more than the
P40-per-kilo price prior to the supertyphoon. A small-sized egg now costs P9 from the pretyphoon price of P6 apiece.
“If you don’t have money, you can only wait for the relief goods,” Bacanto said.
Social Welfare Secretary Dinky Soliman, who was in Estancia on Dec. 4, a Wednesday, along with Interior Secretary Mar Roxas and Defense Secretary Voltaire Gazmin, assured the evacuees that food assistance would continue, at least until the end of December.
The food assistance will be given in three batches, with each batch having 25 kg of rice, canned goods and noodles. The provincial government will also provide P30 per day to each evacuee for viand starting this weekend.
No place like home
The evacuees, however, want to return to their houses, even if they are still in shambles.
“We have been through storms before, including Typhoon ‘Frank’ that also destroyed our house. But this time, this is more difficult because of the oil spill,” Bacanto said.
Botongon village chief Dexter Bacos has appealed to officials to fast-track the cleanup of the shores of their village and the removal of Napocor Power Barge 103.
Power Sector Assets and Liabilities Management Corp. (PSALM), which owns the barge, and the private contractor Kuan Yu Global Technologies Inc. have come under fire for the delay in the cleanup of the coastline, the removal of the remaining bunker fuel from the barge and the refloating and towing of the barge.
The private contractor earlier targeted the removal of the bulk of the oil by Dec. 2 and the towing away of the tanker by Dec. 6, but PSALM acting vice president Elmer Cadano, in a dialogue in Estancia, said it would take at least another week from Dec. 6 to remove the bulk of the oil.
Iloilo Gov. Arthur Defensor Sr. has said the evacuees would be allowed to go home only when the Department of Health has declared their village safe.
In the meantime, the evacuees struggle to continue living a normal life.
Classes in Botongon Elementary School have resumed inside tents at the evacuation center, which also serves as a playground for the children.
“Our daughters keep on asking us when we will go home. But we also don’t know the answer,” Bacanto said.