Hunger driving survivors to Cebu

TO avoid hunger or just to escape becoming victims to random gunshots fired at night, they decided to leave purok Silay in Tacloban City.

Romnick Bacasin, 24, arrived with his mother, Nene, and other relatives in the Mactan Airbase on Nov. 15.

The faces of three children lit up when they received a pack of bread from persons going around distributing food at the airbase.

One of them was 6-year-old Joanick Bacasin, who cried when a relative reached out to take a piece of bread from the plastic bag he was holding.

His mother Hilda, said the boy may have been scared that they would again run out of bread.

At the military base, a temporary stopover, evacuees from Tacloban city were served rice porridge and packed rice meals. Most of the families rested under the shade of trees.

Some squatted on the ground or lay down on carton sheets.

Romnick, a call center agent, said he couldn’t sleep at night in Tacloban because sudden bursts of gunfire would wake him.

Though the trouble was reportedly happening in barangay V and G, he said he feared for their lives.

“I get scared, every night there’s a shooting,” he said.

The Bacasin family lined up for three nights and four days to get a ride on the C-130 to Cebu.

They left behind his father who will be fixing their damaged house.

“People in Tacloban scramble for relief goods. It doesn’t matter whether you’re a doctor, lawyer, whatever,” he said

When supertyphoon Yolanda struck on Nov. 8, Romnick was at work in the call center at 6 a.m. Their manager wouldn’t let them go home since his shift was from 2 a.m. to 12 noon.

They were trapped in the building when seawater started to come in.

The wall had to be destroyed so they could get out. As he stepped outside, Romnick said he saw part of the roof get blown away.

He quickly walked home to look for his family.

The Bacasin family will temporarily stay in the house of a relative, Annie Rose Berdin in Lapu-Lapu City. /Jucell Marie P. Cuyos, Reporter