THE REHABILITATION OF INTERNALLY DISPLACED PERSONS (IDPs) IN ALBAY THROUGH COMMUNITY MOBILIZATION
Renelyn E. Bautista, Ph.D.
Associate Professor II
Bachelor in Secondary Education Department (BSED)
Bicol University College of Education, Daraga, Province of Albay, Philippines
ABSTRACT
This is an ethnographic study that documented community education as a component of the intervention activities implemented in evacuation centers and transitional sites through the Community Mobilization for Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) in the Province of Albay. The project was implemented four months after super typhoon Reming (Int’l. code: Durian) devastated Albayon November 30, 2006. This is part of the rehabilitation for IDPs, the term used to include persons displaced from their original homes or settings as a result of a massive disaster. Originally, an IDP is considered as someone displaced from their homes because of wars. But said term has now included those driven from their homes becauseof massive disasters. Thus, the use of IDP in this study was done in that context. In studying the intervention activities on community organizing, information dissemination, and trainings conducted, it also looked into the IDP’s life history, before the typhoon, during the typhoon, and after the typhoon with particular focus on the rehabilitation centered on community education. This included the results of said community mobilization in line with empowerment, knowledge and skills gained and socio-economic opportunities derived by the IDPs. The IDPs life histories were documented through a compilation of their experiences in narrative form using creative writing, particularly the short story genre. From studying the process of mobilization and the intervention activities, extension strategies were proposed in manual form for community organizing and education to contribute to disaster management and disaster risk reduction efforts of the Province and Bicol University’s vision of “bringing the University closer to the community.”
Keywords: displacement, community education, Internally Displaced Persons, extension strategies, community mobilization, barangay (small community within a rural or urban setting)
1.INTRODUCTION
1
The recent typhoons Ondoy and Peping that visited the Philippines in the months of September and October have allowed the people in Metro Manila to experience once more the extent of damage and destruction that the Bicolanos have undergone through typhoon Reming(Intl. name: Durian) as a result of climate change. Tropical storm Ondoy flooded the Philippines with a month’s worth of rain that fell in just six hours causing severe rainfall that resulted in the worst flooding of Manila in more than 42 years.1 This resulted in other areas becoming isolated with residents unable to access assistance and relief goods.
Recently, the eruption of Mount Mayon in the Bicol Region has again triggered the evacuation of thousands of people from the affected areas to cramped schools and other identified evacuation centers. The events and circumstances surrounding typhoons Ondoy and Peping as well as the exodus of the evacuees from the more recent Mayon eruption were reminiscent of Reming wayback three years ago.
For majority of Bicolanos, November 30, 2006 was the day when nature unleashed its full fury and turned what could have been an ordinary Philippine holiday into Albay Province’s worst ever disaster as super typhoon Reming (international code: Durian) packing winds of 275kph crossed the province bringing eight hours of unceasing torrential rains and ravaging the municipalities of Daraga, Camalig, and Guinobatan including Legazpi City. The pattern of life of the Bikolanos suddenly took on a different turn as super typhoon Reming lashed across the Province of Albay in the Bicol Region, leaving in its wake a destruction that the Bicolanos have never seen or experienced before.
The barrage of rainfall would later on create another disaster as the majestic Mt. Mayon, known for its beauty and perfection, released mudflows sending with it massive boulders, hot sands and cascading mud that totally wiped out concrete houses, burying villagers and several villages and towns located directly in its path in tons of thick mud, and creating scenes of apocalyptic destruction, despair, displacement, and doom.
In the days and weeks after the disaster, more tragic news would come as the entire nation fixed its eyes on the aftermath of the disaster to the Province of Albay and the lives of its people. Places like Padang and Busay would become a familiar fixture in both national and international media news. The entire province would be plunged in darkness. Rescue, retrieval and relief operations would go side by side with mass burials, clearing of roads and bridges, and the massive mass hysteria of grief and despair that clothe the entire province of Albay the following weeks after the typhoon.
The grim facts say it all: 604 dead, countless more missing; 119,848 totally damaged houses with 101,210 substantially destroyed; 1,053,950 persons affected, leaving 22,248 number of families as evacuees scattered in 86 evacuation centers. Whatever economic progress the province was having underwent a dramatic setback brought about by the losses to agriculture (P533,409,734), livestock and poultry (P20,754,708), municipal fishery (15,099.069), aquaculture (Pl.382,000), and infrastructure (P875,087,897) with a grand total damage amounting to PI,445,733,408.2
Thus, the massive extent of the destruction brought about by the disaster that was typhoon Reming, created an overwhelming social phenomenon – displacement – as majority of the Bicolanos found themselves homeless, jobless, segregated and dispersed among the various evacuation centers inside and outside their respective barangays and unsafe zones.
In the aftermath of super typhoon Reming, various agencies and other non-government organizations started collaborating with the Local Government Units (LGUs) including church organizations. One of the many international organizations that helped in the rehabilitation of the evacuees of typhoon Reming or the Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) in Albay was Oxfam International (Oxford Family).
Oxfam is an international non-government organization based in Oxford, United Kingdom. It is currently helping in over 70 countries with its development programs and humanitarian relief. It launches emergency responses where there is threat to health, life, and livelihood brought forth by natural disasters and armed conflicts, offering a wide-range of programs that aims to bring services to affected areas and communities. Oxfam shapes favorable policies and projects with long range effects and is supported by the European Commission’s Humanitarian Department.3
The visits to the various evacuation sitessaw the chaos and disorganization of the evacuees. Other stakeholders were unable to have a systematic distribution of relief goods. In addition, it was observed that the evacuees were simply waiting for whatever assistance they will be receiving not even trying to lobby for their needs. Furthermore, there were many instances when the relief services provided to them were not really what they needed. There were also incidents of misinformation and/or lack of proper information on issues relevant to the evacuees which were generally observed in the evacuation centers.
As a result of these various observations, Oxfam International then decided to launch a community organizing and mobilization for the evacuees or IDPs as part of their rehabilitation process. They also decided to tie up with the Social Action Center-Diocese of Legazpi (SAC-Legazpi) to utilize its pool of community organizers for a concerted effort in offering a different kind of assistance with the end-goal of empowering the IDPs by getting them organized and informed.
It is in this context that said stakeholders responded to the plight of the IDPs in the three hardest hit areas of Brgy. Padang in Legazpi City, and the three municipalities of Daraga, Camalig, and Guinobatan in the Province of Albay. Thus started the Community Mobilization for Internally Displaced Persons in Albay (CMIDP) anchored on the following objectives: (a.) facilitate flow of accurate, timely, and relevant information and access to assistance, (b.) aid and make possible participation in the planning process particularly those in the transitional centers, relocation sites, and returned evacuees, and (c.) ensure through and in mobilization process ‘ownership’ by communities of advocacy plans.4
Sadly, not every victim could be accommodated in the already limited spaces of an evacuation center. As a result, some chose to stay in the high risk areas and identified unsafe zones which were outside the evacuation centers, while others simply remained in whatever was left of their homes. Families were torn apart as some wives and their children stayed at the evacuation centers while their husbands and some male and older members of their family chose to stay in the affected areas to be able to work and provide for their families.
Originally, displacement as a social phenomenon has been taken into context specifically by the United Nations as a result of wars and conflicts. Thus, Webster defines a displaced person as “one who has been driven from his/her homeland by war.” Nevertheless, as a result of the extensive destruction and displacement caused by super typhoon Reming to the Bicolanos in the Province of Albay, the term Internally Displaced Persons or IDPs has now been expanded to include persons displaced and driven from his/her home resulting from a massive disaster. Such is the case of the victims of super typhoon Reming – the IDPs in the four disaster areas of Daraga, Camalig, Guinobatan, and Legazpi City.
In line with the CMIDP Project, the researcher received an invitation sometime in January 2007 from Mr. Joel Calla, the Project Coordinator for said program of the Social Action Center-Diocese of Legazpi (SAC), requesting her to work for a mobilization project for a period of three months beginning February 12 until the end of May 2007. Having been a volunteer writer-researcher and documenter for SAC-Legazpi for the past four years doing field works in the far flung communities and barangays in Albay, the researcher then decided to accept the challenge of being the project’s Information Officer. She became in charge of the creation and installation of a popular village level system of information for the Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs).
As part of her duties, she immediately set up the creation of a grassroots level newsletter in the vernacular that aims to facilitate access to timely, relevant information and in the process allow the IDPs to be educated and organized as well as gain access and swift assistance from various agencies and organizations. This included visiting the four project areas of Brgy. Padang in Legazpi City, Brgy.Busay in Daraga, Albay, Camalig and Brgy.Maipon in Guinobatan.
Thus, began her involvement with the Community Mobilization for Internally Displaced Persons or CMIDP Project. Having seen the effects of how the informal education component of the CMIDP Project could help in mobilizing as well as empowering the IDPs towards community development, the researcher then deemed it significant to delve into a descriptive analysis of the IDPs and examine how the various intervention strategies with the element of community education mechanisms provided by the said project affected and effected changes in the community life of the IDPs, particularly in their rehabilitation process. In addition, the vision of Bicol University in “bringing the university closer to the community” became another major factor in the researcher’s interest in delving into the complex world of community organizing for it brings to light the reality that education do happen and is perhaps much more dynamic when it is extended far beyond the four walls of a classroom.
It is in this context that this research has been chosen to discuss the plight of the Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) with particular emphasis on the intervention mechanisms used that became the basis for the identification of extension strategies which can be utilized both by the academe as well as non-academic institutions. Finally, a manual that outlined the identified extension strategies with emphasis on the areas of community organizing, education, and mobilization is produced for the benefit of any interested stakeholders as a way of replicating the mobilization process in both disaster and non-disaster areas.
In like manner, it is hoped that this study would serve to highlight the role of education towards social and community transformation ultimately making education truly liberating and relevant.
Specifically, this study focused on the following questions:
1. What is the life history of selected Internally Displaced Persons in Albay?
2. What intervention activities were introduced and implemented by Community Mobilization for Internally Displaced Persons (CMIDP) along:
(a.) community organizing, (b.) information dissemination, and (c.) trainings?
3. What are the results of the CMIDP experience in terms of (a.) empowerment, (b.) knowledge and skills gained, and (c.) socio-economic benefits and opportunities derived?
4. What extension strategies may be proposed for community organizing and community education based from the CMIDP experience for implementation by academic and other non-academic institutions?
2. METHODOLOGY
The qualitative method, specifically descriptive-ethnographic analysis of the rehabilitation of the Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) or the evacuees of typhoon Reming in the Province of Albay through community mobilization was used. By identifying the various intervention strategies and/or mechanisms utilized throughout the project process, the study produced a guide on extension strategies for organizing, education, and mobilization that can be applied in both disaster and non-disaster areas by the academe as well as non-academic institutions.
The IDPs’ life history prior to, during, and after said disaster in line with the CMIDP intervention was considered as comprising the bulk of the data necessary for this qualitative analysis. At the same time, the results of the CMIDP intervention in terms of knowledge and skills gained, socio-economic opportunities derived and empowerment of IDPs as well as the intervention strategies and/or mechanisms were also considered as the IDPs’ life histories were studied for this revealed the transforming power of community or grassroots education including the IDPs’ transitions from disorganized individuals to a highly organized and mobilized group.
Further, the fifteen respondent IDPs were considered in terms of a cross-sectional representation to ensure that all affected sectors were represented. As part of the data gathering, the researcher utilized participant-observation, interviews of the IDPs and Focus Group Discussion (FGD) of key informants who in this case are the community organizers. Participant-observation was used since the researcher was involved with the community mobilization for the Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) as Information Officer and observed the transition of the IDPs from their status as evacuees because of displacement until they were organized into core groups leading to their mobilization.
Triangulated data culled from the Project Coordinator, community organizers, the IDPs and the researcher as the project’s Information Officer were analyzed by looking at the recurring themes and/or patterns and came up with whatever was common or the most likely thread that provided insights and guides into the implementation of extension strategies geared towards community organizing, education, and mobilization – all of which were documented in an operations manual for academic as well as non-academic institutions.
Following the context of the research theorist, Paulo Friere and his action-reflection-action praxis, the researcher provided her analysis in the form of reflections incorporating her insights and observations regarding the general flow of the data utilized in this study.
In the process of conducting this qualitative-descriptive analysis, the researcher consulted several sources of data that further deepened the perspective and progress of the study. The IDPs were foremost among the sources of data including the community organizers and project coordinator of the CMIDP Project. Data were gathered through informal interviews, brainstorming sessions, and focus group discussions.
Among the primary sources of data for this research were the interviews conducted of the fifteen IDP respondents. In addition, the Focus Group Discussion (FGD) participated in by the community organizers and other people directly involved in the project was also a great source of significant data particularly on identifying the possible extension activities that could be proposed and/or developed by the researcher. The Terminal Report of the Community Mobilization for Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) project provided the concrete details for identifying the services accessed by the IDPs.
Since this is a qualitative descriptive study, the particular instrument was the life history of the Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) culled from interviews and participant-observation. The life history of IDPs was known from said interviews using the interview guide and guide questions in the focus group discussion. All interviews were videotaped and manuscripts of said FGDs and structured interviews were transcribed. The IDPs’ life histories were recorded utilizing creative writing particularly the short story genre to breathe life into their stories. The IDPs’ vernacular was also quoted verbatim with English translations done in parentheses in writing their stories. The community organizers were also interviewed using the focus group guide questions to gather needed information from them.
3. DATA GATHERING
Ocular visits were initially conducted to the evacuation centers and transitional sites including the affected sites. The relocation areas in Brgy.Anislag in the Municipality of Daraga, and Brgy.Taysan in Legazpi City where the IDPs from the following areas of Brgy.Busay, Daraga, Albay and Brgy. Padang, Legazpi City had been relocated were also visited. Site visits and interviews were conducted at the following resettlement areas – Mauraro in Guinobatan, Albay and Brgy. Pandan in Busay, Albay. The actual disaster sites of Brgy. Busay, Daraga, Albay, Brgy. Padang, Legazpi City, Brgy.Maipon, Guinobatan, Albay and Brgy.Tagaytay, Camalig, Albay were also visited to have an actual feel of the devastation caused by Reming. Evacuation centers and transitional sites were also part of the ocular data gathering in 2007 as part of the researcher’s job as Information Officer for the Community Mobilization for Internally Displaced Persons (CMIDP) project.