After Seniang, Ruby, Yolanda: N. Iloilo teens suddenly grow up

Jake Lopez

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Typhoons Seniang, Ruby, and Yolanda force teens like Michelle, Angelie, and Antony to grow up
SURVIVAL. Widow Milagros Doyongan has a hard time recovering from Super Typhoon Yolanda and typhoons Ruby and Seniang. All photos by Jake Lopez

ILOILO, Philippines – Other teenagers would be hanging out with their friends, playing computer games, or simply being care-free youngsters. However, this is not the case when 3 typhoons, one of them possibly the modern world’s worst, makes you grow up before your time.

All of 17 years old, Michelle Doyongan simply wants to be a dutiful daughter to her widowed 42-year-old mother Milagros, and a good elder sister to her siblings after her father Jovic died.

Milagros narrates that Jovic was trapped by falling debris from their house after he had their 3 other children escape to his sister’s house at the height of Super Typhoon Yolanda (international name: Haiyan) on November 8, 2013. 

At that time, Milagros was at the home of another family, working as their househelper, and had no idea of what was transpiring in her own home at the height of the typhoon. 

Mas maayo gid nga buhi ang akon nga bana, kay siya lang gid ang gahatag sa amon sang kabakod. Sa kada hampak sang hangin sa amon atop, siya dayon ang gakadumduman ko (It could have been much better if my husband were alive for he was the only one who gave us strength. Every time the wind blows through our roof, I always remember him),” says Milagros.

SHELTER. In the outskirts of the town proper, Angelie Trayco, 18, is busy fixing their wet things in their ruined house after Typhoon Ruby threatened to wreak havoc on their town.

For 2015, Michelle, a freshman student taking up BS Biology at the Northern Iloilo Polytechnic State College (NIPSC) just wants to keep on going to school and find a job to help her family.  Michelle’s education is made possible by a good Samaritan who offered to send her to school in the wake of Yolanda.

For the Doyongans, bringing food to the table is hard enough. Their kitchen, a year after, is a mishmash of nipa leaves barely holding together – a concern that could have been easily fixed if the head of the family were alive.

The government gave Milagros P30,000, presumably for the loss of her husband and to rebuild their lives but all that amount could show for is a minimally repaired living room. The two-bedroom house is now reduced to only one bedroom since the foundation for the other room has weakened so much that it poses a safety risk for the whole family.

A daughter, a sister, a mother

In Barangay Poblacion, Zone 1, in the outskirts of the town proper, 18-year- old  Angelie Trayco was busy fixing their wet things in their ruined house after Typhoon Ruby once more threatened to wreak havoc on their town.

Angelie is a second year BS Business Administration student of NIPSC and despite not getting much help, she is hopeful for 2015.

“I wish for a bountiful life; a peaceful and healthy life. And I also hope papa would stop drinking and mama would not return to Manila,” says Angelie in the local language.

Her brother, 14-year-old Antony, simply wants to finish schooling and to work so he can help his parents. 

ACQUIESCENCE? Old men in Estancia town in northern Iloilo beside a house tilted to one side, probably thinking that with so typhoons going their side of the country, why bother fixing it?

A festive holiday season was probably the last thing in Angelie’s mind since she is her 4 siblings’ caretaker. This has been the case since their mother worked in Manila even before Typhoon Yolanda, and is most likely to remain there for some time because they had yet to recover from the super typhoon that totally ruined their home.

What they call a house is a contraption of thin blue-and-white-striped tarpaulins that serve as walls. Their roof is made of G.I sheets nailed together. Poles and strips of bamboo somehow glue all these together. Everything else was blown away. One wonders how they keep themselves safe from the elements.

Michelle, Angelie and Antony would have wished to take life easy. It wasn’t so bad before Super Typhoon Yolanda came but after the super howler and then typhoons Ruby and Seniang, they have no choice but to grow up and live up to expectations. – Rappler.com 

Jake Lopez is a volunteer of the Typhoon Yolanda Story Hub Visayas, a citizen journalism portal created on November 13, 2013, by veteran journalists, student writers, mobile journalists, and photographers based in Iloilo City. The Hub delivers reports from across  Panay Island, especially the severely damaged and minimally covered northern Iloilo and the provinces of Antique, Capiz, and Aklan.

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