KIDAPAWAN CITY — Some 160 residents from the high-risk areas of Barangay Cabilao in Makilala town expressed gratitude to Senator Christopher Lawrence “Bong” Go for revisiting their plight ten months after the magnitude 6.0 earthquake hit several towns of Southern Mindanao.
Cabilao Barangay Captain Analyn Villas said she cannot believe that the Senator will immediately respond to their cry, “ we are so blessed because Senator Bong Go listened to us and immediately gave us food, we are so thankful to him and to President Rodrigo Duterte”.
Jessa Mendoza, a mother of two young kids said they cannot depend on the ration from the social services department of the town because it is not regularly provided.
Mendoza said her husband is lucky because he was commissioned to fabricate a bamboo house for fighting cocks and is earning at least 400 daily depending on his output, “ . . . og wala pa, maglisod gyud mi og survive diri (if not, it will be very hard for us to survive here)”.
Go who sent foodstuffs, vitamins and face masks to the remaining internally displaced persons at the Boy Scout Jamboree site in Old Bulatukan in Makilala, in a video message said that in this trying times, the government and the people need to support each other to wade through the crises from being a quake survivor and in the fight against coronavirus-19.
The Senator responded to a report that families who were still at the evacuation center needed intervention, as the local government can only give ten kilos of rice every month, and sometimes, nothing comes as a provision.
Through his staff, Reggie Giducos, Go delivered the goods and even raffles three bicycles for the IDPs.
The families occupying the jamboree site are the remaining residents from Cabilao, who are not allowed to go home because of the threat that awaits in their former village, which has been considered by the Bureau of Mines and Geosciences and the Phivolcs as high-risk areas.
It has been 10 months now since the unprecedented damage by the earthquake took place, hence, the local government of Makilala has yet to procure property for their relocation.-ezc/Newsline
