Disasters

I am 68 years old, and in the course of my life, I live through several disasters:

1. Fire - In 1949, (I was not even born yet) Cotabato City went through a big fire that razed the whole town. It changed the lives of many people. Because of the fire, my parents who used to live and do business at the town center, lost their dwelling places, and the family business called “Community Bazaar”.  Everything was razed down. After the fire, together with my maternal kins, they relocated near the river bank, and opened a small cafeteria com retail business at Villaeron corner Mabini Streets. It was there that I grew up. While I was growing up, fire was the foremost disaster in Cotabato City. Houses were mostly built from wood. Water supply was inadequate and fire department was inutil. After their experiences, my parents were quick to prepare for the disaster. Our home had fire extinguishers, flashlights and a stash of empty flour sacks with tying strings ready for packing incase of evacuation. The children were also prepped. We were given steps to follow.....
a. The first thing to do was to untie our own mosquito net, to fold it and lay it down properly. The logic there was because the mosquito nets like curtains catch on fire easily.
b. To wear our shoes immediately, as wearing slippers would be more risky, prone to tripping.
c. To go in twos. I was to partner with my elder sister Helen.
d. To leave home immediately. To let the elders and the maids take care of the packing of our belongings.
e. To go to an open safe place like the plaza and to stay there and keep safe until the fire was over.
There were several fires in the course of my growing up, there were a lot of rebuilding too, but many families were displaced likewise. When I was in senior high school, there were two big fires in the city. Many of my friends and classmates houses and establishments were gutted down. My friend Cu BeeLian and her family, who were victims of the fire came to live with us until the end of the school year. After our high school graduation, they did not reestablish their business in Cotabato anymore but left for Manila for good. The same thing happened to my close friend Anita Go and many others friends and families that followed suit.

2. Flood - Cotabato City was flooded sometimes in the early 60’s. My mother was in Manila for a check up, a vacation or something and was stranded in Manila for awhile. My eldest sister Imelda (Theng Theng) was in high school, and I was in the elementary. We lived near the river, hence our place was among the first to get flooded, yet I remember our sari-sari store continued to open everyday. My father elevated the store shelves and counters. We walked on wooden planks elevated by soft drink cases, then it got so bad that my father had to use the cafeteria tables as boardwalks for us to traverse. As kids, Helen and I were unafraid. We played with flood waters near the river banks, trying to catch gurami fishes and little shrimps in a jar for fun. When the water got higher and higher,  we were prohibited to wade in the flood because of the strong current. We measured the rise of the flood by the steps of the staircase going to our abode on the half floor. Helen told me that if the water reached up to the second last step of the stair, my father would be evacuating us. It almost did but thankfully it did not. Then the water began to recede slowly. After the flood, the government began to dredge the delta, the city government elevated the roads. Up to the present time, many stores in town are still lower than the level of the streets. Those places in town still get flooded once in awhile.

3. Earthquake - We had a big devastating earthquake on August 16, 1976. I was by then married and living with Lucas and my in-laws on the second floor of LCT Hardware at Corcuera Street. When the earthquake struck, my son Roy was exactly one year, one month and one day old (Rather two days old). Our house and store went down. The house was partially destroyed but the store was completely totaled. Thank God, nobody died from that household that night. Not only was the earthquake big in magnitude, but tsunami also struck along the coastal area. Thousands of people died along the coast line. O Lord have mercy.
Few days after the earthquake, Roy began to manifest his first asthma attacks and was getting sick oftenly, since then. He must have inhaled a lot of dust that fell down from the ceiling that night. Now a days, I henceforth advise my children, to prepare surgical masks for emergency use during earthquakes because of the amount of dust that is going to be released when walls and ceilings crack open.
Life was extremely hard after the earthquake. For awhile, there was no electricity nor water. We had to clean up our own earthquake debris and rebuild from what was left of our house, and restart what’s left from the business. The family camped at LCT bodega at Lucio and Conchita’s house for 6 months. The available rooms were given to the grandmother, the children and their yayas to sleep. The able bodied adults like Luna, Tina, Lucas and myself slept at the big living room. The task of rebuilding LCT #1 (We had two by the way: LCT #1 and LCT #2) and the downsizing our old house and store was laid upon the shoulders of my poor husband. I tried to make the best out of my miserable life during this period. I had two more children during the transition years in 1977 and 1979. We were finally relocated in 1980, in a new building at the new location at Magallanes Street, merging the two stores into one, until the present time.

4. War - As far as I can remember, there were sporadic skirmishes between the Ilaga (Christians) and the Black Shirts (Muslims), as early as the early years of the 70’s. The clamor for Muslim independence was supported by the oil rich countries in the Middle East and elsewhere in the world for the flourishing of their Islamic religion. Imelda Marcos had to concede and build a mosque in Quiapo, Manila to appease Libya in exchange for oil. There was an actual war in the 70’s where bombardments occurred in Cotabato City between the military and the Muslim rebels everyday. The military flew planes over Kakar, to bomb the hiding insurgents, while the rebels retaliated by bombing the military installation of the Philippine Constabulary at the Colina Hill which was really close-by. Every morning, we could actually hear the bombings on the hill site. Every so often during the day, we could also hear the flying of cognizant planes and the bombings of Kakar. Politically, President Ferdinand Marcos made peace by creating an Autonomous Region. But peace did not come anytime soon, for there were more rebel factions that surfaced, the MNLF, MILF, BIFF, all wanting a bigger part of the bargain. Skirmishes, ambushes, ied bombings, atrocities and more battles sporadically continued, and continue to this day in the city and its surrounding area. Sadly I have lived through all of these.

5. Kidnapping for ransom - This atrocity happened sporadically for a long time too. I think they started since the later part of the 70’s until the recent millennium. They targeted mostly the rich businessmen and their family members. But who was to say who were rich! Everybody was doing business, working hard and saving for his children and the future. I was not really scared at first, for there were plenty of people better that us. We were rebuilding our lives after the earthquake. We owed the banks and more. My husband and I were very low keyed, I was merely a high school teacher. We were not extravagant and flamboyant. We lived a simple life. Our children were very young and we did not even spoil them with material things. But the bad elements (and they were many) were getting brazen and we suspected that other groups (soldiers and/or politicians perhaps) might be in cahoots. Then situation got worse by 1988 to 1991. They were not choosing only the rich, but anybody could become a soft target. Kidnappings became aplenty. New kidnappings began to surface in a span of weeks. The frequency of which frightened us tremendously. The school children of CCI  stopped going to school by January 1991. In a terrifying abnormal scenario, the school year ended on March 10, 1991, with only a handful of students attending classes. After I submitted my grades and cleared myself as teacher for the school year, I left Cotabato and enrolled my children in Manila. I did not want their education to be disrupted by the scalawags. My children and I lived in Manila for one year from 1991 to 1992, while Lucas stayed in Cotabato to earn us a living. It was so difficult to be separated. But as the situation in Cotabato improved a little, the kids and I returned back in 1993. Many families however were displaced during these times, and many young and abled people left Cotabato for good.

After few years, things seemed to quiet down a bit in Cotabato City, then a worst resurgence came back in 2009 to 2010. The kidnappers (again, we had suspicion that there was some kind of a connivance.)  became even more brazen committing their crimes with impunity. They were so daring, kidnapping during peak hours and in broad day light. They waited for victims at their homes with mortal launchers and armies in front of their gates. They forcibly grabbed their targets from their stores. They even kidnapped two people of the same family and demanded an even bigger ransom. My sister-in-law Conchita was kidnapped on her way home on October 8, 2010, few meters away from the gate. They killed the driver and her security guard, who were following in another car. Lucio my brother-in-law was able to put some resistance and escaped the capture. The news of such evilness broke out nationwide. The government sent in the Marines to secure Cotabato City. That put a brake somehow to the apocalyptic darkness that was pervading the city. Before the marines arrived though, everybody was self quarantining in his own homes, afraid to go out. When the marines came, things slowly got better. The political situation turned for the better too. We were most thankful when Rodrigo Duterte became our president, and Cynthia Sayadi became our mayor. Relatively, we are enjoying certain amount of peace right now. God must have heard all our ernest supplications. O Lord hear our prayers.

6. Covid-19 pandemic - 2020, on going all over the world.

Lord God, life is not a bed of roses. But you are with us during all these times of trials, disasters, and crises; helping me, helping us, helping our families. For these I am most grateful and thankful. Do keep us always in your love and safe keeping. Thank you from the bottom of my heart.