In Yolanda bunkhouses, sex is hard to do

Natashya Gutierrez

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Sex is only one of the many things that Super Typhoon Yolanda victims find difficult to do, making their transition back to their normal lives all the more harder

CRAMPED. The bunkhouses where Yolanda victims are cramped and close together, making normal activities difficult. Photo by Natashya Gutierrez/Rappler

TACLOBAN, Philippines – The goal is for lives to get back to normal. But unable to do even the most basic of things, returning to their lives before the storm is an even bigger challenge for victims of Super Typhoon Yolanda (international name Haiyan).

Aside from having no electricity, having to share a stove with several families, and being far from their source of income, survivors also find it difficult to engage in an important de-stressing activity: sex.

Bunkhouses built by the government in Bgy Caibaan here, measure 16.45 square meters per 4-5 people. This is just above the minimum international standards for temporary housing for 4 people, but below standards for 5 people. International standards require at least 3.5 square meters per person.

A simple curtain divides the cushion for sleeping from the rest of the unit, but because the space is so cramped, the cushion is usually made to stand against the wall to make more space to move around during the daytime.

So far, the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) has been able to move 292 families here or 1,460 people. Of that number, 607 are males and 587 are females. 232 are below 12 years old.

These 292 families are forced to live very closely together, especially because walls are made of plywood just 6 mm thin. During this writer’s interviews inside the bunkhouses, it was easy to hear the conversations next door and the slightest of footsteps of the neighbor’s 1-year-old daughter.

Jennylyn Pondon, 25, and one of those who just moved into the bunkhouses a week ago from the Astrodome that has served as an evacuation center, has two boys – a 3-year-old and a 1-year-old.

She, her husband, her children, and her 16-year-old brother share one bunkhouse and one cushion for sleeping. She says it’s better than the Astrodome, but she admits there is no privacy for her and her husband.

Her husband is often out all day, roaming various villages where he can sell fish since residents are not allowed to sell within the bunkhouse community.

Pondon said she sees her husband only at night. Unfortunately, there is no time for them to be alone.

Wala mang chance mag-usap (there’s not even any chance to converse),” she said.

She said while there is no rule disallowing them from engaging in sex, she said sharing the tiny bunkhouse with her brother and children, plus the thin walls make privacy difficult. She admitted she knows about all the businesses of her neighbors because the bunkhouses are crowded.

She said life was easier before the storm. “Now it’s hard, my husband smells of fish (when he comes back from work),” she said.

Difficult adjustments

The DSWD that cares for the residents in the bunkhouses is trying its best to help victims to return to their normal lives over 100 days since the world’s most powerful storm hit.

On November 8, Yolanda hit Central Visayas leaving about 6,200 people dead and nearly 2,000 others missing. It also destroyed or severely damaged 1.1 million houses, leaving more than 4 million people homeless. 

Agnes Bugal, a social worker and the DSWD camp manager of the bunkhouses in Bgy Caibaan, said they provide psychosocial sessions and meet with residents in their bunkhouses every day.

When asked if they encourage “love-making,” Bugal only said the DSWD has humanitarian partners who have helped restore “activities from where they came from.”

“Those humanitarian partners follow up their activities and encourage them to participate actively,” she said.

But sex is not the only thing difficult to come by.

During the day, it is mostly women left behind in bunkhouses to care for their children while their husbands work. Men, mostly fisherfolks, have to leave earlier than usual, since Bgy 88 – where most of the survivors living in these bunkhouses used to reside and fish – is far, about “3 stops away.” (WATCH: The men of Village 88)

Women here said they often just exchange stories to pass time.

It is especially challenging to find distraction or de-stress here. There is no electricity yet, despite the government’s promise it would provide power for free. Some houses were given portable solar panels, which they use to charge small radios. Television is not an option.

Even cooking is hard, since families have to share a communal stove. The same is true for bathrooms.

NO PRIVACY. Residents have to share units with other relatives, making it difficult for husbands and wives to spend alone time with each other. Photo by Natashya Gutierrez/Rappler

Children too have had to make adjustments. Most are back in school, but like their fathers, the commute to school is much farther than before the storm. Unlike their mothers, however, they’ve found ways to entertain themselves.

Kids ran around chasing each other and playing games, seemingly oblivious to the cramped bunkhouses that have since become their home. During this writer’s visit, about 20 kites decorated the sky, all made out of plastic by the same small hands that flew them.

Own efforts

About a 10-minute ride away is the coastal barangay of Anibong, also in Tacloban.

Here, there is no time for chit-chatting among women. Here, survivors are rebuilding their lives on their own – literally.

Houses are mid-construction, being built by survivors to replace their houses washed away by the storm. The air is filled with non-stop hammering sounds and voices of vendors offering their fish or products.

Jennylyn Villarmin is 24, and lives with her husband and two younger cousins. Her house is half-built but they’ve moved in. They have their own stove, a division for their “bedroom,” a make-shift kitchen and even a tiny living room.

She said her cousins Phillip and Rickyboy helped build the house. Phillip and Rickyboy are currently building another house made of wood right next door.

Villarmin said they decided to build their own houses because they have nowhere to live. They’ve been staying at the nearby school that was turned into an evacuation center, then chose to move to the side of the road where they slept on tables.

When she and her husband saved enough from selling metals and other debris they found in the rubble, they bought construction materials from the hardware store. This, along with a P8,000 they got from a non-governmental organization, was enough to start building their house.

Villarmin said she is aware that they are rebuilding in the very same place her old house stood, where the storm hit right by the ocean, but said a storm of the same magnitude “probably won’t happen again, so soon.”

“We have nowhere to go, we weren’t given a new place to build so we’ll just rebuild here… we weren’t offered bunkhouses,” she said. “We were born here, we grew up here, so we’d rather stay here.”

It’s a short-term solution to a long-term problem, but for now, Villarmin is visibly happier than those in bunkhouses. She enjoys electricity from a nearby ship that was swept by the ocean towards the village during the storm.

Today, the ship remains, lodged deep into the inland. The shipping company that owns it is working on removing it, but Villarmin said they were told it would take months. So the owner decided to provide free electricity for the residents for now, powered by a generation on the ship.

She said she also enjoys privacy with her husband, because there is space between the houses.

The adjustment and return to normalcy, she said, is also much easier. Because it’s the same place they’ve known, her husband, also a fisherman, is able to fish in the same spots as before, and because there are no government officials telling them they cannot sell within the community, they need not go far to sell his catch.

On the day this writer visited, a full plate of over a dozen galunggong sat on the table, fried and ready for consumption.

Government’s challenge

Villarmin said she and her neighbors are given food packs by the government but no cash-for-work programs. Those, she said, are only offered by NGOs or the United Nations. Pondon from the bunkhouses said the same. She had not heard of any cash-for-work options.

The government has continuously said it will build back better and make sure they provide safe, permanent housing for residents so they do not return to dangerous areas. But houses like Villarmin’s are quickly cropping up in no-build zones.

This is part of the government’s challenge. Not just to build back better, but to build back so much better that the residents who currently depend on the government and its word will be glad they waited for their permanent housing. This, even if it means living in small, cramped spaces for now – with no electricity, no privacy, and far from the normal they used to know.

The government must build back so much better, that the residents who choose to return to the no-build zones, and to what they know, will willingly leave their comforting but dangerous normal lives, and realize the adjustment was well worth it. – Rappler.com

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Natashya Gutierrez

Natashya is President of Rappler. Among the pioneers of Rappler, she is an award-winning multimedia journalist and was also former editor-in-chief of Vice News Asia-Pacific. Gutierrez was named one of the World Economic Forum’s Young Global Leaders for 2023.