By Henry Empeño | August 4, 2024

CABANGAN, Zambales — With the onset of the typhoon season, more than a hundred families at the fishing community of Talisay in this town are literally digging in to rebuild their homes and re-start the process of eking out livelihood from the sea.

These are residents of a once-thriving beach resort and fishing area at Barangay Camiing here who were displaced following a court-ordered demolition last April.

Alvaro Nantona, 83, is among those who are trying to rebuild their lives following what residents described as a “traumatic ordeal” when heavy machinery tore down the houses they have lived in for decades.

“I started fishing here when I was just 16. We used to bring in tuna and squid from the reef just two kilometers from the shore,” Nantona recalled last week, as he was weaving a fishing net under a shed roofed with palm leaves.

This is where Nantona lives now: a derelict shack built from pieces of his former home. “I get wet a little when it rains hard, but I get by most times,” he told BusinessMirror. “When a storm comes and the wind really hits strong, I transfer to the barangay hall and sleep there.”

Like most of the villagers affected by the demolition, Nantona has started building a new home at the relocation site proffered by the landowner, where each family was allocated a 50-square-meter lot.

Camiing barangay secretary Jesse Abdon said a total of 110 families were affected by the demolition, but only 72 qualified for relocation.

House constructions are funded mostly with the P27,000 that each affected family received from the landowner following the demolition, and P15,000 in assistance from the local government, he said.

In a recent visit to Brgy. Camiing, Gov. Hermogenes Ebdane Jr. announced that the fisherfolk affected by the demolition could avail of P30,000 worth of materials from a local hardware on account of the provincial government. This is on top of the financial help the residents may get from local officials.

“This has been arranged already. They just have to coordinate with local officials to avail of the assistance,” Ebdane explained to BusinessMirror last week.

Hope amid hardship

While some villagers said the P42,000 they received was not enough to complete a decent shelter, Clarita Ladao-Biay and her family had recently finished their dwelling at the relocation site.

It isn’t anything fancy: the roofing is GI sheets, but the walls are thatched nipa. An elevated part left of the doorway serves as bedroom, and across the dirt floor is a “banggera” where cooking and eating utensils are arranged on bamboo slats.

“We’re okay here,” the 75-year-old Clarita said. “What matters is that we have shelter from the rain.”

“This is actually a bigger house, but we also miss the old one,” chimed in Alvin, 34, one of Clarita’s children, who shares the new dwelling.

Aside from giving shelter, the new homes are proving to be a beacon of hope for the villagers of Talisay.

Joneil Carmona, 32, said the demolition traumatized the fisherfolk because they were uprooted from a place they have lived in since childhood.

“Most of us were not able to go out to fish when the demolition happened. We were unsure of what would happen to us, because we didn’t have anything to come back to,” he said.

Holmalyn Flores, 43, added that even the schooling of their children suffered after the demolition, as residents prioritized rebuilding dwellings from what scraps they could scavenge from the demolished ruins.

“But we’re doing all right now. Slowly, we’re getting back on our feet,” Flores said. 