For The Bohol Tribune
In This Our Journey
NESTOR
MANIEBO PESTELOS
Each time I walk around
our project sites, mostly those where we have partnered with the Church and
people’s organizations, as well as with local governments, in building
transition core houses after the destructive earthquake two years ago, I become
convinced more and more that what we need in our province and the country as a
whole is hope, huge chunks of it, served with prayers and large helpings of
projects, not mere slogans or rhetoric.
I am convinced that the
families we assisted with transition core houses to help get them out of tents
deserve to be listened to and somehow engaged in something for the long term to
further nourish their newly-found hope for the future, their families and local
communities and the country eventually.
I believe that the
assistance given to the earthquake victims, mostly in the form of cement,
plywood, nails and other construction materials, were actually investments not
only in the building of temporary or permanent shelter, but in a more
meaningful sense, they were actually investments in building hope among those
rendered hopeless by a natural calamity beyond the control of the government,
the Church or any other entity.
Hope is almost always the
first casualty in a disaster, whether man-made or not. If we see it this way,
then it becomes easier for us to persevere in our task to help people rebuild
their homes We will believe that in doing so, we are actually putting in place
the building blocks of something that our country seems to be in short supply
these days – hope.
These were the thoughts
swirling in my head when I, along with three others from our NGO, had a
surprise visit to Angilan, Antequera where we had partnered with families who
sought refuge in a chapel after the earthquake. The chapel eventually gave way
due to the series of aftershocks and the old women and children of 17 families found
shelter in a waiting shed while the menfolk made do with tents they themselves
fashioned out of used tarpaulin and other materials.
Their liberation from the
crammed waiting shed and makeshift shelter was a high point in the race against
time barely two months after the disaster. Now, two years after the quake, a
community has risen and their hope for a better life is made evident by the
following:
-All 11 children or young people from this project
site are all in school: college, 4; high school,
4; and elementary, 3.
-All 7 carpenters from 15 families living in the
main area of the project site are all employed in either the town or Tagbilaran
City;
-Piped water is available from the municipal system
on certain hours for which each family member contributes Php 10 per month;
-Electricity has reached the community, each family
paying from Php 97 to Php 100 depending on usage;
-UNICEF through Catholic Relief Services has
provided a toilet to each house built based on agreement between the latter and
our NGO, Bohol Local Development Foundation (BLDF);
-Each of the families has entered into agreement
with the landowner that Php 50 be paid monthly as rental or as contribution to
the tax of the property per month over an initial five-month period with ten
percent increase annually after which the rate will be negotiated with the
landowner(s);
-The “dajong” or mutual aid societies giving aid for
burial services has been revived this time with an expanded membership of 25
due to admission of families from the nearby puroks;
-The “dajong” has added another service, that of
being source of micro-loans to members;
-Two families are making doormats out of coconut
coir provided by a party list group;
-Two families are raising a pig each at the backyard
as source of income to pay for school fees and other expenses after three to
four months of caring for them;
-A family has been allowed by the landowner to till
1/4 ha. as ricefield out of the 25-hectare estate with one-third of harvest as
his share.
-All 15 families in the main project site have built
all kinds of extensions, such as porches, expanded kitchens, dining areas, salas
indicating new aspirations following relative land security due to agreement
with the landowner(s);
-Homeowners put up curtains, plant ornamentals
around the house, hang up family photos, all indicating they have found a place
they can call their home.
-The lone sari-sari or convenience store provides
basic necessities without the families going to the town to buy them.
During the consultation after the visit to the
houses, the representatives of families present said they would need some help
to expand their pig raising project. This visit confirms earlier observation
that after the house build, efforts must be exerted by the proponent agency or
the partner NGO to go back to the partner families and explore ways and means to
help families identify livelihood opportunities.
Most likely, they have already identified these
opportunities and are doing their best to create products or offer services
which will result to some cash income for the family. It’s not necessary that
we ourselves become the source of livelihood ideas. In the case of the project
site in Angilan, they seem to know what they want to further build the community
out of hope, faith in themselves and the
Great Unseen.
We were about to go to the other project site in
Pangangan , but I was reminded I had to go to the chapel in Dampas for my first
confession since I left the church when I was fourteen years old. I did return
to the fold and attended, I recall, one spiritual one-on-one retreat with a Jesuit
priest, Fr. Cavan, at their retreat house in Cebu in 1987.
I recall I was not made to do any confession stuff. Instead,
I was made to do the stations of the Cross alone on a hill and to say whatever
I want to say at each stop e.g. in
anger, to question God, to shout or scream my heart out, whatever. For one
hour, I took the journey and was astounded to find at the end of the last
station, a trellis extending for almost fifteen meters full of bougainville
flowers and I had to walk underneath it.
When I emerged, I remember being met by the glare of
a bright sun at high noon. The Jesuit fathers must have planned it that way for
me to realize hope awaits us at end of a bleak and chaotic journey of inner
conflict and self-flagellation.
Along the way from the project visit in Angilan to
observe the second anniversary of the
Magnitude 7.2 earthquake which hit our province two years ago to the confession
and Mass in Dampas, I read again from my digital this advice from Pope Francis:
“To all of you, I repeat: Do not let yourselves be
robbed of hope! Do not let yourselves be robbed of hope! And not only that, but
I say to us all: let us not rob others of hope, let us become bearers of hope!”
#BLDFwarrior
NMP/16
Apr 2015/6.45 p.m.
