No calm after tropical storms in the Philippines

A year after Typhoon Odette, we trace the path of destruction the tropical storm left in its wake across the Philippines

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Report by Laura Fornell, Photographs by Oscar Espinosa

 

On two fateful days at the end of 2021, the Phillipines was hit by a Category Five super typhoon that left seven provinces in ruins. Odette was the 15th tropical cyclone to hit the Philippines that year, and by far the strongest. It affected nearly eight million Filipinos and left hundreds of thousands of people displaced, homeless and without access to food and clean water, at a time when they were already facing the social and economic impact of the Covid-19 pandemic. Each year, this archipelago is hit by about 20 tropical cyclones of great intensity, which cause torrential rains and heavy flooding. Poorer households with more fragile infrastructures are the most affected, especially those located on the coast as they’re more exposed to extreme weather conditions. A year later, we trace the trail of destruction left by Odette and meet some of the people still trying to recover and prepare for the next blow…

I always live in fear of what might happen, but I don’t want to live anywhere else,’ says Sanciana Ereno, a resident of the small coastal town of Burgos on the island of Siargao in the Philippines, where she grew up, got married, raised a large family and, 11 years ago, was widowed. At 70 years old, this small and determined woman has seen many typhoons sweep through her town. On 16 December 2021, at 12.30 in the afternoon, Typhoon Odette (internationally known as Rai) made landfall for the first time on Philippine soil and swept away the house where she was born and raised her seven children. ‘Like so many times before, we were evacuated to the municipality pavilion before the typhoon arrived; we ran out without being able to take anything,’ she recalls. ‘When we were able to return, we saw that Odette had destroyed everything, and we had been left with nothing.’ 

She spent a week in the evacuation centre with two of her children, who still live with her, and then moved in with her sister, who hosted them for the three months it took to rebuild her home. She received some government aid, mainly in the form of building materials. However, she needed the help of her children, who live and work in Manila, to pay for the repairs to her tiny home made of wood, sheet metal and plastic a few metres from the sea. ‘We have spent about 50,000 pesos [about £750] on the reconstruction,’ explains Sanciana, who doesn’t receive any pension and only does sporadic cleaning work. Although the house isn’t yet finished, Sanciana and her two children have already returned to the neighbourhood, where they will continue to rebuild when they have the funds. 

A couple of hours later, Odette passed through the City of Surigao and destroyed the home of the Baliña family. ‘When we settled here in 2004, we had nothing, just a table that we turned into a bed at night,’ says Gay, 45, while her husband Vicente, 48, smiles wistfully. ‘But now we have to start again from scratch.’

Gay, Vicente and their seven-year-old daughter Gayvin live above the ocean in a rickety settlement of shacks on a wooden pier. When the tide goes out, it exposes layers of rubbish. Their home couldn’t withstand the 270 km/h battering that Typhoon Odette inflicted. They evacuated with all of their neighbours and when they returned, most of them had lost their homes. ‘We improvised a tent with tarpaulins among the rubble until we could build this small room to sleep in and, little by little, we will raise the rest,’ Gay says.

The family is crowded into a room of barely four square metres, into which they can just squeeze a bed. They carry on as best they can with their stalls selling fish and bananas, trying to save to continue rebuilding their house and their lives. ‘Before Odette took everything, we had a room that we rented to seasonal guests, and that was our main source of income, but it was destroyed and we don’t know when we will be able to rebuild it,’ says Gay. She says they received no aid to rebuild their lives, just emergency food and basic necessities immediately after the typhoon. They are used to repairing the damage caused by tropical storms. In 2009, their home was damaged, but not destroyed. ‘We know it can happen again, we just hope it won’t be as strong as this one,’ she concludes with a shrug. 

At 4.50 in the afternoon, the eye of the typhoon made landfall in Liloan, south of the island of Leyte, completely sweeping away the neighbourhood of Caducan next to the port and destroying the homes of its 127 residents. The Manlimos family lived for two months in Liloan school until they could raise four walls and a roof. ‘They helped us with some materials with which we have been able to get this built, but it’s not enough,’ explains Ruffa Manlimos, a 31-year-old single mother. ‘Every time it rains, we have to put up plastic to protect ourselves, but we don’t have any more money, so we will finish it as we can, and for the moment, we manage as best we can.’

 She and her four-year-old daughter Princess, who was traumatised by the typhoon and didn’t speak for several days after, live with three siblings and three other children, as well as her mother, Marielou, 59, who suffered a stroke four years ago and spends her days lying on the floor, unable to move. They hope to finish rebuilding their shack before the next typhoon arrives. ‘Although I don’t know how I will manage to save, as I am the only one in the family working at the moment, doing manicures, and we don’t get any kind of help for my mother’s disability,’ says Ruffa as she massages Marielou. 

Two hours later, the typhoon hit the small town of Albuquerque on the island of Bohol, causing severe damage to the century-old house where Demetriadez Loretero lived with three of her children and two grandchildren. ‘My husband’s parents lived in the house. This is where he was born, and later so were our six children’, says the 74-year-old widow, standing in front of what’s left of her home. ‘Now we can’t live here because it’s dangerous, and we are spread out in different relatives’ houses while we try to get money for reconstruction.’

Although her three children work, one as a fisherman, one selling fish at the market and one running a small shop, their salaries are just enough for the family to eat, and they don’t know how they will be able to save. ‘We haven’t received any help because they thought that our family living in Canada would help us, but that hasn’t been the case,’ says her daughter, Yconne, 39, who has managed to get the family’s makeshift convenience store (known locally as a sari-sari) back up and running in front of their battered house. ‘Whatever it takes, sooner or later, we’ll be back living here.’ 

The next day, the typhoon reached the island of Palawan and left the Cortez family homeless in Taytay. Since then, the couple and their two children have had to split up between several relatives’ homes and only see each other on weekends. ‘We’re looking forward to getting back together and raising our house back up here, but we haven’t received any help, and we have no savings, so we don’t know how long we’ll have to live apart,’ explains Ruby, 51, standing next to the rubble of what was her home for more than 20 years and where her husband Delfin, 49, and their two children, ages 16 and 20, were born. ‘We estimate that we will need about 100,000 pesos, but we don’t know how long it will take because we need everything we earn to live and it is practically impossible to save.’