Mayor of typhoon-hit town pleads for jobs

HERNANI, Eastern Samar—Two months after his impoverished town was devastated by Supertyphoon “Yolanda,” Mayor Edgar Boco said the people needed to rebuild their lives by getting back their jobs in fishing and farming.

Residents of this town, which has a population of at least 11,000, are still reeling from the aftermath of what the mayor described as a “hellish nightmare.”

Boco said the town continued to rely on relief from the national government and aid groups.

The people of the town lost their main sources of livelihood—fishing and farming—as a result of Yolanda.

The town is estimated to have lost at least P1.5 billion in crops and infrastructure.

The devastation was simply overwhelming, the mayor said, considering that the town has an annual income of only P36 million, P1 million of which comes from local taxes.

“That is how badly we need the help of our government and the different international groups who are helping us at present,” Mayor Boco said.

“No matter how we try to rebuild our lives and our town, nothing will happen if there will be no intervention from our government,” he said.

“Our people could now be starving without this assistance. Our people have no income,” the mayor added.

Dolores Jerusalem, 53, from Barangay (village) Three, said more than two months after Yolanda, their lives remained at a standstill.

“We have  lost not only our home and source of income but even a child of ours. The experience is too much for us to bear and comprehend,” Jerusalem said.

She lost her son, Martin, and four of her 12 siblings when their house was carried to the sea by a storm surge. Eleterio, her husband, lost his fishing boat.

Mayor Boco said all the houses in four of the town’s 13 villages—Batang, Carmen, Three and Four—were carried away by the storm surge.

“Not a single house now stands in any of these villages,” said the mayor.

Many of the 77 confirmed deaths in the town are from the four villages. At least 1,000 residents who had fled to houses of their relatives on higher ground have since returned to their communities and are now living in tents given by different aid groups.

“I thought what happened to us was a just a nightmare,” said the mayor. “I even knocked my head several times for me to really believe that what happened to our town was for real and that we were all affected,” Boco said.

He said that while he was thankful for the help that his town was getting from the national government and international aid groups, he knew this would come to an end soon.

“All this assistance will come to its end,” said Boco. “That’s why we really would like our government to provide livelihood assistance to my people. They rely mainly on fishing and farming,” he said.

Last Jan. 24, Sen. Cynthia Villar, chair of the Senate agriculture committee, and officials of the Department of Agriculture provided coconut seedlings and fishing equipment to more than 200 farmers and fishermen of the town.

“These are meant to help them restart their lives,” she said.