Following “The Philippines says Thank You” campaign by the Department of Tourism to acknowledge the world’s help to the victims of super typhoon “Yolanda”, the storm’s survivors in Leyte and Samar have launched their own campaign to call on the government to look seriously into their plight.
People Surge, an alliance of Yolanda’s survivors, at the weekend called on netizens to “talk to our family, friends and countrymen on Facebook, Twitter and various other social networks about the continuing struggle that Yolanda survivors continue to face.”
Yolanda slammed into the Visayas on Nov. 8, 2013, killing more than 6,000 people and affecting 11 million more and of whom most lost their homes.
And as Saturday last week marked the third month of the typhoon’s arrival, the victims said they continued to suffer from “persisting government corruption and criminal negligence.”
“On February 15, it will be the first 100 days post-Yolanda and not much will have likely changed. Never forget the disaster that happened—and that still continues to happen—in Yolanda,” the alliance said in a statement posted on its social media site.
The group also assailed the so-called Aquino-Lacson’s “Build Back Better,” saying it was “designed primarily to facilitate profit for big corporations while the victims as major stakeholders are marginalized from the start.
“It is impossible to achieve genuine recovery for Typhoon Yolanda’s victims given the orientation of the government’s reconstruction program. Aquino-Lacson’s ‘Build Back Better’ is just a euphemism for privatization and profit-making,” the alliance said.
“The big real estate developers, mining and construction firms are lining up in disaster areas, circling like vultures on the devastated communities...Because there is no coherent, government-led plan, reconstruction efforts would depend on what the private sector would view as profitable in the long-run. Storm victims run the risk of being further marginalized and exploited under such a scheme. That’s disaster capitalism for you.”
The alliance has set Feb. 14 as the deadline for its petition.
Three months after Yolanda savaged the Visayas, its victims continue to complain that they are “being left to fend for their own to survive.”
Nilda Bautista, 52, of Old Road Sagkahan, a coastal village in Tacloban city that bore the brunt of the typhoon, questioned government’s “lack of serious planning” on their relocation and its livelihood assistance for them.
“We don’t know what the government will do to us. We don’t know their plans. We don’t feel their help,” Bautista said.
The government has prohibited the residents from rebuild their homes 40 meters from the shoreline to protect them from future storm surges, but “Nobody came to us to explain why we have to move away,” Bautista said.
“They asked us to transfer, but where?”
Bautista said she was also deeply concerned about the news that millions of foreign aid had poured into the country for the typhoon victims.
“Where are those foreign donations?” Bautista said.
“Not a centavo came to our hands. We’re getting tired of waiting.”
The government has prepared bunk houses in the city, yet those have yet to be occupied. Jay-ar Gatmaitan, another survivor, said that for his housing needs, he was salvaging any housing material blown away by the storm.
“What we have for our houses are tents and tarpaulins given by foreign relief workers. Those are not enough,” he said.
Gatmaitan gathers scrap corrugated roofing that he sells for P4 per kilo to earn a living.
He joined a rally last week that the survivors held to air their grievances against the government.
“We joined the rally because we don’t want to be forgotten,” Gatmaitan said.
About 12,000 storm victims in Tacloban were joined by their supporters from Leyte and Samar for the “People Surge” indignation rally.
The storm victims demanded P40,000 in cash assistance per family, the scrapping of the no-build-zone policy that effectively evicts families in the coastal communities from their homes and livelihoods, the immediate reconstruction of vital public infrastructure such as schools and hospitals, and the immediate restoration of the power and water supplies.
Baltazar Betasolo, 55, said that if the government was serious in helping them, “they should give the support directly to us now.”
“We clamor for our right to food, housing, livelihood and adequate social services,” said Patrick Escalona, a community leader.
“We can no longer take this kind of treatment from President Aquino,” Escalona said.
“Everything about him is empty talk and promises. Do we have to beg for the assistance due to us?”
Source:
Yolanda survivors’ protest spreads online - Manila Standard Today
Yolanda survivors’ protest spreads online
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