Capturing learning from a Typhoon Odette Community-led Humanitarian Action
Note: Images are used with permission. Waivers have been signed.
Maribojoc, Bohol
Chariel Salingay or Yeye belongs to the God of Multiple Chances. Like the town he calls home, he and his family suffer and survive from everything fate throws at him, which includes literally the kitchen sink which flew towards him at the height of typhoon Odette.
Living in a hillside barangay called Bayacabac, Yeye is charming, smiling and gentle. When I met him three days after landfall, he smiled and said, “paita na jud kaajo. (It is so difficult)” And continued to smile. That’s the equivalent of a child swallowing a very bitter pill and asked to smile after.
His house where he, his wife and two kids lived, was damaged by earthquake in 2013 . He was a habalhabal driver. The International Organization for Migration gave him a transitional house. His eldest son turned out to be a PWD with what seems to be symptoms of muscular dystrophy. A supportive family helped him survive this ordeal. Later, he claimed to be a victim of the anti drug campaign. Arrested in a buy bust operation, he was in jail for a year.
When he was released, COVID happened. And he was not allowed to go back to being a driver, and thus became dependent on his brothers and sisters.
And then Odette came, and his house collapsed into a pile of seven-year old light materials. The 1000 peso cash assistance he received from us was budgeted to feed four families living in an unfinished house whose owner lives somewhere.
Lesser beings would surrender. But Yeye, like Maribojoc, is made of stronger foundations. He admitted that there were many times he considered suicide because the suffering is too much, and then he would look at this PWD child and strengthen his resolve to keep on surviving. His brother committed suicide a year ago, and he knew it didn’t solve anybody’s problem.
Latter Day Saints Charities thru ECOWEB provided him with materials to rebuild stronger his house. His services as driver to the volunteers also provided him weekly income for his family.
One month after Odette, the team visited Yeye and his family for the Infant Kit. Life was still a constant struggle, he said. But the house is safe and dignified now. His emotional state was not anymore of desperation.
His resilience is not in his capacity. It is in his strong desire to prove that he is worthy of the many chances God offered to him.
