A year after Ondoy, road to recovery remains rough

On September 29, 2009, three days after tropical storm Ondoy ravaged Metro Manila, Ruth Coralde returned to her home in Barangay Bagong Silangan, Quezon City - or at least what was left of it. She sobbed when she saw the mess of fallen roofing and muddy belongings that the typhoon left behind. "Masakit, kasi lahat ng ipinundar mo nauwi lang sa wala (It hurts to see all that you've worked for gone to waste)." Coralde, who had suffered from stroke before the disaster and could hardly move her body, said it was difficult to watch her husband and two sons look for scrap materials and rebuild their house. Her only consolation was the fact that nobody in her family was seriously hurt or killed. Mira De Jesus, who lived a few houses away from the Coraldes, was not as lucky. Her husband and her three-year-old son went missing at the height of the floods, and are now believed to be dead. "Parang naging kalbaryo na kahit yung paggising sa umaga (Waking up in the morning has become a burden)," she said. After losing the only two people she lived for, she still finds it very difficult to rebuild her life. [Do you live in a flood-prone area? Find out using our interactive flood map of Metro Manila.] The way it was A year after the onslaught of Ondoy, which killed over 400 people and cost more than P20 billion in damage, victims are still trying to bring back a sense of normalcy in their lives. Many residents in Bagong Silangan, a resettlement area for Manila squatters, had to endure an entire month without a roof over their heads. Cash donation from the parish church and construction materials from non-government organizations like Gawad Kalinga helped them rebuild their houses, and after a few weeks, everything was back to the way it was. "But that's the problem," said Bagong Silangan barangay chairman Armando Endaya. "It can't just go back to the way it was. If we don't do anything to solve the congestion in the barangay, another Ondoy will happen, and a lot of people will get killed again." Endaya complained that his barangay has become the perennial relocation site in Metro Manila, making the place congested with housing projects that clog drainage systems. He added that officials from other cities simply "dump" former squatters in the area without regard for urban planning. He suggested filling up and leveling the ground to make the area one to two meters higher. "The ideal situation is they stop bringing people here," Endaya said. "But if they can't stop that, just make sure the residents are living on higher ground because I'm sure it will flood again in the next five years."To help the community get back on its feet, the local government transforms the barangay’s covered courts into a bazaar once every week. Residents are encouraged to open small stalls and are charged a very low rental fee. De Jesus, who opened a stall selling household items like dippers and coat hangers, said she earns P2,000 every week -- enough to rebuild her house and buy daily necessities. These days, however, she is saving money for a trip to Bicol, where she plans to live with her parents. "Kapag nanatili ako rito, lagi ko lang maaalala 'yung nawala sa akin, kaya mabuti pang umalis na lang ako (As long as I'm here, I'll always remember what I lost. It's best if I just leave)," she said. Traumatized children At the height of Ondoy’s devastation, guidance counselor Jovita Mani spent the entire evening at the fourth floor of Malanday Elementary School in Marikina City. "Thank God it was a Saturday," she said with a sigh of relief. "If it happened on a weekday and the pupils were here, I would not know what to do." The floods destroyed the first floor classrooms and offices of the elementary school. The three upper levels of the buildings, which were used as evacuation centers, got vandalized and the rooms had trash everywhere, Mani recalls. Apart from the drenched class records that they will not be able to replace, she said everything else was easy to fix. The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) donated new chairs and desks, and the Department of Education provided new books.

Three weeks after Ondoy, the classrooms were restored and the school was ready to start classes again. But little did the teachers know that the harder part was just about to begin. "A lot of our pupils, especially the ones in Grades 1 to 3, were really traumatized by what happened. A lot of them live nearby and were also affected by the floods," Mani said. For a week, Malanday Elementary School decided not to hold regular classes. Instead, debriefing sessions with the children were held. The pupils were asked to draw and play games to express their feelings – activities that were meant to help the children cope with their trauma in ways that are comprehensible to their young minds. Mani said the debriefing sessions helped a lot. After a few weeks, the children were back to their usual playful selves. However, it is a different scenario when it starts raining. "Even after a year, the onset of rain still has an effect on them," she said. "One of our Grade 1 pupils even jumped up the cabinet when he heard thunder. And then he told the rest of the class, 'halika na, darating na yung baha (let's go, the flood is coming)." She said the guidance office continues to talk to these children and help them get over their fears. "It's a long process, you have to give them time to move on," she said. New life in Provident Village Getting anxious whenever the rains come has become a common fear among victims of Ondoy. Even 62-year-old Perfidia Dy-Liacco, whose Provident Village home was devastated by flooding, admits that she used to hide in the bathroom every time it rains because she feels safer there. Their house in Riverside Drive, so named because the street overlooks the Marikina River, was barely a year old when Ondoy inundated the subdivision. On that rainy Saturday, Dy-Liacco was busy decorating the house for the holidays, in what would have been their second Christmas there. "It all happened so fast. The water came in, the glass windows broke, the next thing I knew we were swimming our way out of the second floor window. It's something you don't forget easily," she said. While the rest of her family moved out while the house was being renovated, Dy-Liacco chose to stay but could not get herself to leave the second floor. "I felt so depressed. I did not want to dress up or put makeup on, which is very different from who I really am," she said. It took three weeks before she convinced herself to look at the rest of the house, which the family fondly calls “katas ng Vietnam" because it was an investment they made from the earnings of her two children who worked abroad for many years. She said she considered selling the house, a decision taken by more than 20 other homeowners in the village after the devastating floods that left many people dead in the once thriving community. However, Dy-Liacco could not abandon her “dream house" and so she set about rebuilding the place. It became her personal project, and also her way of distracting herself from the sadness that engulfed the village. After six months of reconstruction, the house is back to its former glory. Emotionally, Dy-Liacco said she needs more time to bring herself back to normal. Although she feels much better now, she still has to really get over what happened a year ago. "Rebuilding this house is a start," she said. "My family and faith in the Lord will help me move on from it all." – YA, GMANews.TV