The most recent series of earthquakes that hit the Philippines on Nov 16, 30 and 31 left North Cotabato, a province in the northern part of the Island of Mindanao (the second largest group of islands in the country), in shambles.
On Dec 5, five Goducate Philippines staff, in partnership with Sultan Kudarat Association, visited Barangay Buenavista in the Municipality of Makilala, in North Cotabato. Barangay Buenavista is one of the 38 barangays (villages) in Makilala. 20,704 families (some 103,520 persons) reside in the Municipality of Makilala, where the earthquakes eroded more than 200 hectares of land.
The visiting group had first to get a clearance pass from the Makilala Incident Management Team before proceeding to the relocation site. The specific relocation site that the group visited was housing about 150 families from Sitios Lapu-Lapu and Rizal. The relocation site is a private property owned by a businessman who generously allowed his rubber plantation to be occupied by those whose houses were destroyed by the earthquake.
The local elementary school in Barangay Buenavida was also destroyed by the earthquake, so the teachers and the remaining students resumed classes in makeshift classrooms made of tents in the same relocation site. According to the teachers, only about 120 of the more than 200 pupils have remained. The rest had left North Cotabato out of fear that the earthquake might hit the province once again.
During the relief operations, lunch was served, and packed goods were given following the master list of the households registered in the relocation site. As a stress-debriefing procedure, the Goducate staff together with the partners from Sultan Kudarat Association facilitated games for the children and adults, separately.
*Our guest writer is Carmela Damaso, a Goducate staff member in Iloilo.