It will be September tomorrow and on the 26th, it will be a year since Ondoy ravaged Manila in 2009. I remember that as photographers, a friend and I went out at 4pm that day to shoot what was going on around us. In Kamias where the water rose waist-deep, we saw the rescue team standing atop their truck looking helpless.They too needed RESCUING! V Luna was also flooded. We had to turn back and thought things would subside in the night. Little did we know that the floodwaters had already submerged parts of Marikina especially Provident Village and Tumana. That showed us that nature would not choose who to drag along down the river—rich or poor. Next day, we were already in Provident village at 7am. Next we checked out Tumana where we saw dead people on the street. But I digress.
The following photos are of Barangay Banaba, in San Mateo. They were not hit as hard by Ondoy as their neighboring barangays were because they had prepared for it. They are a community that works together to make sure their homes and their lives are intact despite the floods that come each year to their area. They have banded together to make sure of their own survival. Its quite a remarkable story. Today they have programs where they recylce tetra plastics and make them into materials for urban gardening, manufacture their own fiberglass boats for their rescue operations during flood season, have began a garbage collection system to encourage the members of the community to segregate waste materials, and have also become suppliers of “green charcoal” from Bicol. This is definitely NOT an Ondoy story of woe. They are a community learning and practicing empowerment.
Below this community lies the Marikina River that constantly overflows during the typhoon season.
Belen de Guzman is the community monitor. She stands next to the river that has always flooded parts of Banaba and nearby communities. When the water reaches level 18 as marked on the water level chart under the bridge, she then alerts the community to evacuate.
Belen is originally from Pangasinan. She and her husband have come in search of better opportunities in Manila. They settled in San Mateo. She has four children. The eldest girl (shown here) is a Criminology student who hopes to graduate this year.
Basketball is a popular game in many Filipino communities.
