The people in Barangay San Roque never expected a tragedy like this would ever happen to us, aside from our city (Iligan City) is not really a site of storm since we are actually surrounded by mountains that act as blocker to the incoming storms we are just not mentally prepared for such phenomena.
The river where most people in our barangay treated as one of our source for clean water for bathing, water for home use, and leisure for both children and children at heart now represents the word FEAR
The river where most people in our barangay treated as one of our source for clean water for bathing, water for home use, and leisure for both children and children at heart now represents the word FEAR
The photo shown above is the aerial view of Mandulog River, OUR river.
The river most of us grew up with, the river where children played, where mother's washed dirty clothes, where fathers catch fishes for dinner.
The center of life in our barangay and the other barangay's surrounding it.
And this is what OUR river looks like, after the December 17 tragedy.
Millions of properties were destroyed.
Hundreds of houses were washed away.
big dreams of little people was deviously robbed by the monstrous flood.
and LIVES ended.
The other day, for the first time after the tragedy, together with my best friend Cleo Bade' i stepped out of the evacuation center where we volunteered for 12 days then, we stood inches from the river. As we silently stood there side by side at the river bank, the wonderful memories of our childhood rushed, our laughs and the laughs of those children who came before and after us echoed in my ear. If weeks ago, each time i looked down from the bridge, all i remember is the play and happiness of every children. Now all i see is pain, tears and sorrow.
The lives that this very same river took. The children who died an untimely death, the mothers and fathers who were taken away from their little ones.
For our people to pick up the tiny pieces of hope left would never be easy, perhaps some would continue living but they were never really alive after what happened.
The best that we, people who are not affected by the calamity can do is to walk with them to their journey as they struggle to live again.
The air that we breath will never be the same, for it will always bear the smell of fear and loss
but that should not stop us from breathing.
We will STAND up again.
it may not be right away, but eventually, we will.
