'NO CHRISTMAS,' SAYS CAGAYAN DE ORO MAYOR AS CASUALTIES CONTINUE TO RISE

by Cong Corrales, InterAksyon.com

Survivors of the Cagayan de Oro flashflood rest by a bonfire they have lit by their temporary roadside shelter. (photo by Ted Aljibe, AFP)

(2nd UPDATE: 2:12 PM) CAGAYAN DE ORO CITY/MANILA, Philippines - Thousands of people in the southern Philippines, mainly in Cagayan de Oro and Iligan cities, are facing Christmas in emergency shelters after floods that left more than 1,000 people dead and another 1,000 unaccounted for.

Tens of thousands of people are jammed in crowded evacuation centres, short of water and sanitation facilities.

With his city still reeling from the death and destruction of the flashfloods triggered by tropical storm “Sendong” last week, Christmas appeared to be the last thing on Cagayan de Oro Mayor Vicente Emano’s mind.

“Wala’y pasko karon (There is no Christmas now),” he answered curtly when asked on the phone if he had a message for the holiday.

On Saturday, a day before Christmas, the number of dead continued to rise, according to data released by the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council.

In its latest bulletin, the NDRRMC placed the death toll at 1,100. The missing remained at 1,079, although the agency said the figure was “subject to reconciliation/verification.”

On Friday, the agency’s count of missing persons suddenly jumped from only 51 with officials attributing this to queries by residents in provinces around Cagayan de Oro and Iligan, the two most devastated cities, who had not heard from relatives in the disaster zones. They also said whole families had been wiped out, with no one left to report on their fate.

The NDRRMC also said 1,979 persons were injured and 442 had been rescued.

All in all, Sendong affected 108,798 families, or 695,195 persons. Of these, 14,089 families, or 69,287 persons, remain in evacuation centers.

The storm also destroyed 10,977 houses and damaged 26,912 others and caused more than P2 billion in infrastructure damage.

The storm and floods have displaced around 330,000 people with more than 69,000 others huddled in emergency shelters.

Emano said city employees and search team members would be working through the Christmas holidays, recovering bodies and caring for those who evacuated their homes.

To deal with the hundreds of dead, with the stench of decomposing bodies in parts of the city being overwhelming, Emano said two large communal graves had been dug and unclaimed bodies would soon be buried in them.

While Christmas is normally one of the most festive times of the year in the Philippines, a largely-Roman Catholic country, few in the affected areas felt like celebrating.

At the evacuation center of this city’s Central School on Velez St., ambulant vendor Junie Lgaspi, 32, described the disaster as “grabe ka pait nga pinaskuhan (the worst Christmas gift).”

Legaspi lived on Isla de Oro, an urban poor community on a sandbar on the Cagayan de Oro River that was among the worst hit areas in this city.

Although his three sons and five daughters, aged eight months old to 12, all survived, he lost everything else – his home and everything in it, including eight chickens, a pig, four ducks and two fighting cocks.

“Wala gyud mi nasalbar (We saved nothing),” he said.

Asked how he looked at Christmas this year, he replied: “Tungod sa baha, ambot kung ang mga sunod nga Pasko mahimong malipayon pa.” (Because of this flood, I don’t know if our Christmases can ever be merry again).”

“Ang akong mga anak pirmi gyud magbalik dumdum ining nahitabo sa amo sa Pasko (My children will always remember what happened to us at Christmastime),” he added.

Despite her loss, 31-year old laundrywoman Floresa Avenido chose to see things in a better light.

The two-storey residence in Zone 7, Acacia St., Barangay Carmen where she had grown up in was totally destroyed when another house crashed into it during the flashflood.

“Wala gyud mi magtuo nga malapawan pa among balay kay dos andanas man (We could not believe the flood would inundate our house because it is two-storey),” she said at the West City Central School evacuation center, where she now stays with her four sons.

Still, she said, “Bisan pa’g nawala ang tanan tungod sa baha, nagapasalamat gihapon ko kay kumpleto mi pamilya karong Pasko (Even if we lost everything we had to the flood, I am still thankful because our family is still complete this Christmas.)

“Pamilya ang pinaka importante nga pinaskohan sa ako (My family is the most important Christmas gift for me),” she added.