‘The time to rise is now’

TANAUAN, Leyte—So many plans. So many wishes. Officials and residents of Eastern Visayas are sharing a goal this year: Bring the region back to the way it was, or even better than how it was, before Supertyphoon “Yolanda.”

From Tacloban City in Leyte to Guiuan town in Eastern Samar, officials have high hopes that 2014 will be a year of rebuilding.

The time to rise is now, Tacloban Mayor Alfred Romualdez said.

“We have the right attitude. Our resiliency is a big contributory factor why we can rise again. There is a time to mourn and we have gone past that stage,” Romualdez said.

Aside from fully rehabilitating or reconstructing the public infrastructure facilities destroyed by Yolanda on Nov. 8, 2013, the city government wants to embark on an ambitious plan to create housing enclaves for near-shore residents, a “new community” at city-owned inland lots in the northern section of Tacloban.

Rehab funds

However, above and beyond political will and hard work, what the city will need is money—lots of it, running into billions of pesos.

Romualdez, like all officials in local government units reeling from Yolanda’s onslaughts, hopes to get a slice of the P40 billion that the national government has set aside for rehabilitation.

In these promises of recovery and rebuilding, people like fisherman Wilfredo Redulla, 46, pin their hopes.

Right now, Redulla could not see much of a future beyond the next day’s meal. He and his wife, and their four young children have been staying in a tent for two months after a storm surge brought by Yolanda carried away their house and killed his sister in Barangay San Roque in Tanauan town, 18 kilometers from Tacloban.

Their tent was donated by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, along with other temporary shelters on the grounds of Tanauan National High School occupied by 184 other families.

For Redulla, optimism is all he has. He has nothing more to lose by believing that he can recover.

“I still believe in our government, that they can help us victims of Yolanda as it has promised. That is why, I remain positive that we can have a good new year,” he said.

Death toll rising

The typhoon’s toll on lives and properties is staggering. In Eastern Visayas alone, the number of deaths reached 5,768 as of Jan. 7. The region accounted for most of the fatalities across central Philippines, placed at 6,100 as of Jan. 7.

Tacloban, which bore the brunt of the typhoon, has so far counted 2,500 bodies, with over a thousand still missing. More bodies are still being unearthed beneath the debris and rubble as cleanup teams reach the inner recesses of the city.

The Regional Disaster Risk Reduction Management Council has placed the damage to infrastructure and agriculture at more than P11.3 billion.

To the people of Tacloban and the rest of Leyte, Yolanda inflicted a damage worse than what happened during World War II, when the city and the neighboring Palo town were pounded with mortars and canons as American Liberation forces led by Gen. Douglas MacArthur came to free the province from the Japanese occupation army in October 1944.

Romualdez, serving his last term as mayor, has no doubt that Tacloban would rise again and even hinted of a “dramatic development in the next few months.”

“It’s now time to work and move forward … to work for a better and progressive Tacloban and I can see we can have it in the next few months,” he said.

But the city government would need help from both the national and international governments for the rehabilitation phase that would cost at least P13 billion. It had earlier passed a resolution creating a special bank account for all money assistance to the city.

Lawyer Tecson John Lim, the city administrator, said the officials hoped to get a fair share of the fund at the disposal of rehabilitation czar, former Sen. Panfilo “Ping” Lacson. The national government has established an initial funding of P40.9 billion under the newly created office intended to jump-start the rehabilitation of areas hit by the storm.

New settlements

As to the families who lost their houses along the coastline, Lim said the city government was planning to create a “new community” in the northern part of the city. He said the National Housing Authority would develop the site.

But Lim said it would take “months” for the new community to be realized as it would require sizeable funding. Its exact amount has yet to be determined.

Among the international groups providing construction materials to Yolanda survivors in the city is the International Organization for Migration (IOM). So far, the IOM has distributed 6,585 shelter kits, including corrugated galvanized iron sheets and nails.

Jobs

Lim said the city hoped that businesses would resume to provide jobs to the displaced breadwinners. Earlier, the regional Department of Labor and Employment reported that over 17,000 lost their jobs when businesses shut down in the city.

Broadcaster Lizbeth Abella and more than 20 other personnel of radio station dyDW found themselves idle when the their building in San Jose District was destroyed and its transmission tower toppled.

Management had told them that it would take six months before operations resume, Abella said. “I’m looking for a job and hopefully find one soon to help feed my two sons,” she said.

Her husband, Nemesio, is a contractual employee of the Department of Public Works and Highways. The Abellas’ house in the Nula-Tula District was destroyed, too.

Coconut farmers

Over one million coconut farmers in Eastern Visayas lost their livelihood when Yolanda felled 33 million coconut trees estimated to cost P16 billion, according to Edilberto Nierva, regional manager of the Philippine Coconut Authority (PCA).

The PCA, during the first few days after the typhoon, provided chainsaws to the farmers so they could clear the fallen trees in their areas.

Since they could not earn money from coconut trees in the next two to three years, the agency gave them seedlings for vegetables and root crops, like “camote” (sweet yam), which have short maturation periods.

Despite the positive prognosis of the region’s leaders of recovery, the business sector is not as upbeat. In fact, the businessmen do not expect any full recovery in the near future, said Robert Castañares, president of the Eastern Visayas Chamber of Commerce and Industry.

 

Business prospects

“The arithmetic is fairly simple as to why business will remain down for quite some time. Ninety percent of the consumers depend on agriculture for income, and about 60 percent of palay and 40 percent of coconut were destroyed,” Castañares said.

“Moreover, the basic economic cycle is produce and consume. As of now, we both fail in those two factors: literally (there is) nothing to produce and (no) money to purchase,” he said.

In general, business prospects in Tacloban and other affected areas still look dim, he noted.

“The business sector is still waiting for the results of the rehabilitation program to happen, including our request for loan restructuring, calamity business loan and relaxation of certain BIR (Bureau of Internal Revenue) rules,” he added.

Castañares said it would require interventions from both the national and the international aid community to restore household income to the pre-Yolanda level.

For Go Tic Ching, president of the Tacloban Chinese Chamber of Commerce and Industry, the speed of recovery in Tacloban would depend largely on the rehabilitation program of the government under Lacson’s supervision.

“We are still hopeful that we can recover. I have full faith in rehabilitation czar Lacson. Right now, we want to give jobs to the people. The business community provides the engine of growth in the city,” Go said.