By HENRY EMPEÑO | Sta. Cruz, Zambales

Not a few Zambales residents locked in by the Luzon-wide Enhanced Community Quarantine (ECQ) are heading back to their hometown on foot, their stories tugging at the heartstrings of those monitoring their difficult journey back home.

Braving the long passage and eschewing personal safety, at least 10 bands of these intrepid wayfarers left areas as far as Cavite, Manila, Tarlac, and Pampanga during the Holy Week to escape the harsh realities of the lockdown and be with their families.

“They have no choice but to go home,” said Dr. Benito Molino, chairman of the Concerned Citizens of Sta. Cruz (CCOS) in Zambales, who helped guide their return via social media.

He said the workers were classified as non-residents in the places they worked, and hence cannot expect any assistance under the government’s Social Amelioration Program (SAP).

“They had no work, no money, no assistance, and no food,” Molino said. “But they have feet… and so they walked.”

‘BAHALA NA SI BATMAN’

From their pleas for help, Molino could tell that they were mostly daily wage earners whose meager funds have ran out after a lockdown was imposed by the government to prevent the spread of the new coronavirus disease (Covid-19).

A message from one worker stranded in Manila described their common predicament: the work stoppage due to the lockdown and the prospects of a lockdown extension.

“Isang linggo na ang lockdown, sanlinggo na ring walang trabaho sa construction. May usap-usapan pang itutuloy ito hanggang katapusan ng Abril.  No work, no pay na kami; mamamatay kami sa gutom nito.  (It’s been a week without work at the construction site since the lockdown, and there is talk about extending it to end of April.  We don’t get paid when we don’t get work; we’re going to die of hunger here),” the worker messaged CCOS.

“Hindi pwede ang sinabi ni Panelo na walang mamamatay sa gutom. Ang lakas lang ng manggagawa (ang puhunan) sa produksyon. Ano pa ang lakas namin pagkatapos ng lockdown kung kami ay nagutom?” the workers also said.

(We cannot believe [former Presidential Spokesman] Panelo’s words that no one will die of hunger [during the quarantine]. That  doesn’t apply to us, because it is only our strength that we contribute to production. But what strength would we have left after the lockdown if we go hungry now?)”

“Uuwi na lang kami; bahala na si Batman (We will just go home, and leave everything to fate),” the worker added.

TARLAC FIVE

Among those who took the long journey home were five residents of Sta. Cruz, Zambales, who walked all the way from San Jose town in Tarlac to Botolan, Zambales, a good 52 kilometers away as the crow flies but over torturous mountain terrain.

Jonathan Alquetra, a resident of Barangay Tubotubo South in Sta. Cruz, said they have been working for two months in a farm at Barangay Iba in San Jose, wrapping mango fruits with paper to prevent infestation, when the Luzon-wide quarantine was declared.

“Natigil ang trabaho namin nang hindi na makabili ang aming boss ng papel sa ibang bayan. Nang isang linggo na kaming standby sa manggahan, nagpasya na kaming umuwi at maglakad (Our work stopped when our boss can no longer buy paper from other towns. After one week of being idle at the mango farm, we decided to walk home),” Alquetra told Headline Zambales in an interview over social media.

Alquetra, 30 years old, took the hike with town mates Vicente  Pamugas, 34, of Barangay San Fernando; Arnel Bello, 37, of Tabalong; and Rex Ancheta, 24, and Jestoni Mapalad, 17, both of Lucapon South.

They left San Jose about noontime on Good Friday, April 10, taking grassland trails that soon led to forest paths and mountain passes.

“Nagbaon kami ng tinapay at tubig; ‘yun lang ang pangtawid-gutom namin. Kung saan kami abutan ng dilim doon kami nagpahinga (We brought some bread and water; that’s our only food for the trip. We slept where darkness overtook us),” Alquetra recalled.

At about 10 a.m. the following day, Black Saturday, they met someone on the road: Nelson, an Ayta native from Botolan who now lived in the Tarlac part of the mountain range. For about four hours, Nelson walked with the five travellers, leading them to a mountain peak, then pointing to them the shortest route towards Zambales.

At one point, the Ayta guide taught them how to cook rice in bamboo tubes. “Nanguha din kami ng suso sa ilog at niluto namin ito sa buho para pang-ulam (We also gathered some snails in the river and cooked them in bamboo tubes to eat),” Alquetra said.

On their own now, they soon traversed some dangerous mountain passes. “Kaliwa’t kanan ay bangin sa dinaan namin (There were ravines left and right where we passed),” recalled Alquetra.

Finally, at about 9:00 p.m. on Easter Sunday, April 12, after their third day on the mountains, they reached Barangay Baquilan in Botolan.

Soon, a vehicle arrived to fetch them. On board was Eric Matibag, a staff from the office of Gov. Hermogenes Ebdane Jr. and also a Sta. Cruz resident, who was summoned by Dr. Molino of CCOS to help bring the “Tarlac Five” to a quarantine station in the nearby capital town of Iba.

MALABON FOUR

Even before the Tarlac Five started their trek on April 10, Dr. Molino and other Sta. Cruz residents were monitoring —and encouraging through social media— several groups of locked-in workers who wanted to go home.

The “Malabon Four”, according to the information they sent CCOS, were minimum-wage workers earning P530 a day, who rented bed spaces near their construction site.

“When the lockdown came, they had just received their salary of P3,180 for one week. But after each sent P2,000 to their families,  they had little money left for the expected month-long lockdown, so they had to go home,” Molino said.

The four workers decided to take the MacArthur Highway that runs through Bulacan province. In Meycauayan town, they were stopped at the checkpoint. The four had to sleep the night there while trying to contact people for help.

The following day, someone offered them a ride to Barangay Barretto in Olongapo City where they had to stop and eventually slept again at a checkpoint.

It was only the following night, April 12, when a vehicle from Sta. Cruz arrived to bring them directly to a quarantine station in the municipality.

KAWIT THREE

Three other natives of Sta. Cruz, who aimed to walk from Kawit, Cavite to their Zambales hometown—a distance of more than 255 kilometers, were luckier.

After starting their walk on Good Friday, lugging heavy bags and wearing masks for protection, they were soon offered a series of rides, according to an account by Molino.

The first was courtesy of a truck driver who brought them to Pasay City by 12:00 noon on the first day of their journey. Then, with coordination from CCOS, another good Samaritan fetched them at the Mall of Asia and brought them northward until they were stopped at a checkpoint in Valenzuela City in Bulacan.

From there, they rode another truck to San Fernando, Pampanga, where they slept the night, and the following day, another hitchhike to Hermosa, Bataan where a police vehicle picked them up and brought them to Barangay Barretto in Olongapo City.

MANY MORE LEFT BEHIND

In the first few days after the declaration of the Luzon-wide ECQ, which suspended the operation of public mass transportation, local government units (LGUs) in Zambales fielded buses to collect their constituents in Manila, Olongapo City and other urban centers.

And while LGUs were unyielding in barring the entry of non-residents, the official pronouncement was to keep the gates open to locals.

“While we have encouraged everyone to stay put in their current location, we could not really turn them away if they arrive,” said Gov. Hermogenes Ebdane Jr. on March 29, as he announced that nine residents of Masinloc town walked the length of the 84-kilometer Capas-Botolan road from Tarlac and were brought to the provincial hospital for quarantine.

As of this writing, Molino said that five groups have successfully made their way back to Zambales.

All of them tested negative of the virus upon reaching Zambales, Molino added.

These include the “San Simon 10”, two groups of workers who left their barracks in San Simon, Pampanga on Good Friday; the “Malabon Four”; “Kawit Three”; the “Manila Nine”, which included workers from Pangasinan; and the “Tarlac Five.”

Still, a lot of Zambales residents remain stranded in various places in Central Luzon, the Ilocos Region, Calabarzon, and the Cordilleras. Molino said most of them are students stuck in boarding house and contractual workers trapped in barracks.

These include a couple who had lived for three weeks at a bus terminal in Bulacan, workers in a sari-sari store in Olongapo which has recently closed, and several farm workers remaining in Bataan.

Concerned Zambales netizens are now urging Zambales government officials to give some attention to the stranded residents, as the latter faced hunger and other hardship because of the extended lockdown period.

“If the government is allowing overseas Filipino workers to return, why can’t our town mates who are just here in the country be given the same opportunity?” asked Mando Bravo, a Sta. Cruz native who now resides in Olongapo.

“They should be allowed to leave,” added Sta. Cruz resident Grace Muyano-Galzote. “Justice demands that we bring them home.”  ~