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The rain was pouring down over Tacloban City. Mayor Alfred Romualdez
was inside his office preparing for battle. A car wash was causing
flooding in an entire subdivision and it was going to be demolished.
Demolish first, ask questions later, Mayor Romualdez said. Under the
previous administration, it was the other way around. Let them sue
us, Mayor Romualdez challenged the owners of the illegal structures
that had been targeted by the city government for immediate
demolition.
In Palanog, the city’s resettlement area,
rainwater was plenty but potable water still a matter of privilege
rather than a right. The area doesn’t have a water system and
water has to be fetched from water tanks that have been put up along
the road. Politicians want to see their names on a big surface in a
public place, my companion told me. That’s the water tank’s
advantage over the water pipe. The elementary school with almost 500
pupils, like everybody else in Palanog, has to fetch its water in
buckets.
I was able to visit Basper Elementary School
aside from Palanog Community School. Both visits left me with a good
feeling. The two schools are ordinary public schools, probably under
the same constraints as most other public schools. Yet, the teachers
seemed genuinely enthusiastic about their jobs. The schools were
neat. Basper Elementary School was flooded though with a drainage
system not built to withstand the volumes of rain that Tacloban City
was experiencing. Fortunately, the city government had already made
a commitment to improve the school’s drainage system, Ms.
Rosamarie Guino, school principal, told me while she served me one
of the most delicious bananas I’ve ever tasted. The school is
surrounded with banana plants. The bananas and kangkong, sweet
potatoes, cassava and vegetables planted under the school’s
Gulayan sa Paaralan program are given to the school children to
bring home.
Away from the urban centers, education becomes a
much bigger challenge. There is a shortage of teachers and
classrooms. In Calbiga, Samar, five barangays don’t have a school.
The barangays pooled their resources and hired a contractor to build
a school. Unfortunately, the contractor ran away with the money.
Other barangay schools lack teachers, and grade 4-6 pupils often
have to transfer to schools in other barangays if they want to
continue their schooling after Grade 3. The good news is that the
local army battalion—the 34th Infantry Battalion under Lt. Col.
Larry Mojica—is assisting the barangays address this problem. And
a local journalist told me that Melchor Nacario, the mayor of
Calbiga, is one of the best performing mayors in Samar.
I wasn’t able to meet Mayor Nacario, but I met
Lt. Col. Mojica. On our way to Calbiga on Feb. 19, my companions and
I got stuck, just like other motorists, along the highway in
Pinacbacdao. The road had cracked. It looked as if there had been an
earthquake. A truck got stuck in the mud when it tried to pass
around the crack. Lt. Col. Mojica mobilized volunteers and
supervised the pulling of the truck from the mud. Finally, the truck
was pulled free and vehicles could pass again. Travelers in buses
bound for Manila, v-hire vans with passengers bound for Tacloban
City or Catbalogan City, and trucks with vegetables from Mindanao
could continue their interrupted journeys.
Lt. Col. Mojica’s camp in Calbiga had been
submerged in neck-deep water. Several stalls at the local market had
been washed away by the rising waters of the Calbiga River. Yet,
less than two days later life was back to normal for most people.
Rice paddies, however, were under water and the crops rotting. The
effects of the incessant rains will be felt long after the rain has
stopped.
Back in Leyte I was treated to dinner at
Rafael’s Farm. Rafael’s Farm is both a restaurant and a park.
Located in Babatngon, about 30-minutes’ drive from Tacloban City,
it has become one of the most popular places in the area. Families
spend their Sundays there, taking a boat ride on the lake, playing
in the tree house, or just relaxing. Rafael’s Farm is a cozy,
romantic place away from the noise and pollution of the city. Prices
are very reasonable, reflecting the fact that it wasn’t created by
owner Rene Tampil for profit but created from a dream of beauty and
peace.
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