Mindanao - Northern Mindanao || X 40 days: Opol townsfolk remember seeing the dead, saving 144 people
40 days: Opol townsfolk remember seeing the dead, saving 144 people
Saturday, 28 January 2012 00:00
OPOL town on Wednesday joined Cagayan de Oro in remembering the victims of the Typhoon Sendong disaster 40 days after the devastation. Opol had no casualties but townspeople fished out 25 bodies near the town's shorelines, said Mayor Dexter Yasay Yasay said Opol rescuers and volunteers also saved 144 people who were swept away by rampaging floodwaters in Cagayan de Oro into the waters off Opol town. On Wednesday night, nearly 400 people from different sectors in Opol joined together to light candles and offer flowers at a beach in honor of the dead and the missing after inter-faith reflection and prayer at the Opol public plaza. The Rev. Roy Travilla of a local Baptist church said Opol townsfolk should be thankful that the town was spared while Pastor Camilo Baconga of the United Church of Christ in the Philippines acknowledged that "it is not easy to lose a loved one" but people should continue holding on to their faith.
Yasay said the Sendong disaster should make people proactive and be involved. "People need to realize their responsibilities as Filipino citizens and as Opolanons towards their community." In Cagayan de Oro, the flag at the city hall grounds is still at half mast as Cagayanons continue to mourn. Moving on has been a painful task for many Cagayanons knowing that life would never be the same again. But ever y disaster and calamity brings opportunities for kindness and good deeds. Cagayanons experienced this after help and assistance in cash and kind from different parts of the country and abroad poured into the city. Relocation sites are now being established and thousands of houses are being constructed for calamity victims, a place where they can once again live out their dreams.
Last Wednesday, the first 40 housing units at Xavier Ecoville in Lumbia and the first four at the Calaanan relocation site, projects of Xavier University and Habitat for Humanity, respectively, were turned over to beneficiaries.
Cleaning the debris and wreckage brought by the typhoon was not easy but helping hands came. Earlier, local officials and residents from the different municipalities and cities of Misamis Oriental brought needed equipment and cleaning materials to clean-up a badly ravaged Barangay Carmen. The United Nations Development Program and other groups have also launched their own clean-up drive.
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