A decade after Storm Haiyan decimated the Philippines, town of Tacloban is setting a brand new commonplace for surviving world catastrophes.
Every November, on the eighth of the month, the sidewalks in Tacloban, Philippines, glow. Since 2013, the individuals of Tacloban have been kindling rows of candles yearly to honor the lives misplaced to Storm Haiyan.
Storm Haiyan—or Storm Yolanda, as most Filipinos name it—was one of many deadliest cyclones in historical past, resulting in greater than 6,200 deaths and greater than 28,000 accidents. No less than 1,000 individuals are nonetheless thought-about lacking. Haiyan hit Tacloban Metropolis the toughest, collapsing and flattening town’s most formidable buildings and infrastructures and inflicting $14 billion in injury.
In November 2023, the individuals of Tacloban gathered to recollect Haiyan—the nice mourning and the lengthy journey to overcoming one of many world’s worst local weather catastrophes. They’ve risen from deep calamity, modeling how the individuals of the International South have been—and proceed to be—tenacious and united as they rebuild. There are classes to be discovered right here. What has helped this group collectively survive the unimaginable?
An Avenue of Take care of Survivors
Jaime Gravador, a information reporter in Tacloban, was 12 when Haiyan devastated town. Within the hours after the storm, which Gravador describes as “darkish,” “heavy,” and “apocalyptic,” he and his father roamed neighborhoods the place they encountered mass dying. “Lahat ng nakikita mo sa daan puro patay [you find dead bodies everywhere you turn],” he remembers wearily. Even after Haiyan handed, he couldn’t have a look at sure roads with out having a flashback of the lifeless our bodies that when lay there. “It brings you again to all of the deep emotion … recollections na hindi mo kayang maalala. Maluluha ka talaga [memories that you can’t bear to remember anymore. You’ll always end up in tears],” Gravador says.
Within the aftermath of the tremendous hurricane, survivors developed extreme psychological well being situations. Roughly 80.5% of survivors concerned in hurricane aid efforts have been vulnerable to creating psychological issues, and the speed of individuals with psychological sicknesses, together with schizophrenia and despair, elevated after the hurricane.
Nevertheless, the nation wasn’t absolutely geared up to deal with this improve in psychological misery. Gloria Enriquez-Fabrigas, an officer answerable for Tacloban’s well being workplace, instructed the Philippine Each day Inquirer in 2019: “When Yolanda struck, we have been all shocked. … The main target [then] was actually extra on the necessity for meals and primary wants. Psychological well being was put aside throughout that point.” Gravador says that a few of these survivors turned psychologically distressed not simply because their family members died, however as a result of there have been others who have been by no means recovered. For some survivors, the shortage of closure, with no our bodies to bury and grieve, was an excessive amount of to tolerate.
After Haiyan, there have been solely 10 psychiatrists serving Japanese Visayas, even because the demand for psychological well being care considerably heightened. However in 2014, officers in Japanese Visayas carried out the Native Local weather Change Motion Plan, which allotted $90,380 or 5 million Philippine pesos, “to allow authorities businesses and personnel to reply to psychosocial wants by community-based intervention,” in response to a psychological well being report by the Philippine Each day Inquirer.
Japanese Visayas was the primary area within the Philippines to supply psychological well being help in any respect ranges of care: major, secondary, and tertiary, aiding as much as “384 [patients] in 2017,” in response to Dr. Mary Ann Avalon, a provincial well being officer in Northern Samar. Well being employees in Japanese Visayas supplied care to communities utilizing the Psychological Well being Hole Motion Programme (mhGAP), a world program that “goals at scaling up companies for psychological, neurological and substance use issues for nations particularly with low- and middle-income,” in accordance to the World Well being Group.
This system is designed for large-scale communities who are suffering psychological well being situations like despair, suicidal ideas, and different psychological issues, particularly when there’s a nice lack of sources. In abstract, the mhGAP focuses on destigmatizing psychological well being points locally, suicide and substance-use prevention, group follow-up, human rights consciousness, and extra.
Well being personnel, even those that weren’t psychological well being specialists, have been educated with the mhGAP curriculum. The implementation of the curriculum aided the nationwide well being workers and native communities to determine and handle psychological well being situations whereas selling the “psychosocial well-being in affected communities.”
Lyra was 10 when Haiyan flooded her Tacloban residence. On the time, she couldn’t course of the magnitude of the hurricane—till she and her household wanted to climb on prime of their roof to keep away from violent floods.
After Haiyan, Tacloban didn’t have electrical energy for 3 months. Haiyan additionally utterly worn out Tacloban’s water and sanitation companies, together with the ingesting water provide. Lyra remembers ingesting child milk so she may have sufficient vitamin. “Siniguro lang nila Papa na could tubig kami kahit water lang na galing sa ulan. Tapos yung mineral water, parang talaga sa mga child lang, so yung tubig namin, [ay] tubig ulan. [Our dad found ways for us to have enough drinking water, even if it meant rainwater. The mineral water was only reserved for infants].” For Lyra, nothing was ever the identical.
When Lyra returned to highschool, most of her classmates have been now not there. Some died throughout Haiyan whereas others moved away. Due to the lingering trauma from Haiyan in addition to the sudden modifications in her on a regular basis life, her social abilities diminished: “After ng bagyo, mas naging silent ako. Hindi ako marunong makihalubilo. [After the storm, I became more silent. I didn’t know how to get along with others].”
She additionally seen psychosomatic results from local weather anxiousness: “Pag umuulan ng malakas o’ pag malakas ang hangin, parang natatahimik agad ako o’ natutuliro. Hindi ko ma-explain yung feeling na traumatized, kasi hindi ko siya na-categorical nung bata ako. [Whenever I see heavy rains or hear strong winds, I get quiet and disoriented now. I couldn’t explain the feeling of being traumatized at the time since I was only a child].”
In response to Philippines-based environmental psychologists John Jamir Benzon Aruta and Renzo Guinto, local weather anxiousness is “an adaptive psychological response to the precise menace posed by the local weather disaster,” which manifests in “intrusive worrying, concern, and behavioral impairment.” Aruta and Guinto discovered that the Philippines has the very best variety of youth who are suffering from unfavorable feelings like hopelessness, anger, and frustration in response to the local weather disaster.
After Haiyan, communities from totally different components of the Philippines and all over the world traveled to Tacloban to supply hurricane aid. Some humanitarian organizations, corresponding to FundLife, have been birthed from these efforts. FundLife, a company principally led by youth leaders and mentors, supplies aid items and psychosocial help to local weather survivors in Tacloban. The group makes use of mentorship, schooling, and sports activities—particularly soccer—to assist youth address the influence of the local weather catastrophe.
Lyra, who was one of many group’s first mentees, is a residing testomony to the influence of FundLife’s group efforts. “FundLife turned a second household to me,” Lyra shares. “I wished to share the hope I’ve by sports activities and play. Yung play, naging forgotten proper na ng mga bata [Play has become a forgotten right to kids].” Lyra believes that sports activities might be an avenue the place a teen discovers how resilient they’re: “Sa paglalaro… dun mo malalaman na pwede kang bumangon [Play makes it possible for anyone to rise up].”
She’s since returned to the group to work as one in all its soccer coaches. “Nung nag-be a part of ako sa FundLife, hindi ko lang na-develop yung soccer abilities ko, mas na-enhance ko yung confidence at social abilities ko [Since joining FundLife, my football skills improved, as did my confidence and social skills],” she says.
The Energy of Collective Storytelling
“Larog are what you name the sediments on the backside of a tuba jar,” Joanna Sustento says as she welcomes attendees to Larog, a group storytelling challenge the place local weather survivors share tales, music, and artwork to course of the tragedies from Haiyan. “Very very like what we have now right here [in this gathering], the tales we inform are remnants of what has conspired a decade in the past: tales, recollections—nevertheless a lot we pour out, there’ll all the time be one thing else to inform: the remnants,” Sustento says.
Sustento, who co-created Larog in 2017, misplaced her household throughout the tremendous hurricane. She then turned an lively frontliner, offering primary requirements to affected communities in Tacloban. Whereas her story was broadly identified in local weather activist areas, she didn’t have sufficient time to course of the trauma and grieve. “At the moment, [I was on] survival mode,” she says. “[I focused] extra on discovering my relations, kasi noong time na ‘yon, hindi ko pa alam kung sinu-sino ba yung nag survive, and siyempre, discover shelter, meals [because during that time, I didn’t know who else in my family survived, and of course, I needed to find shelter and food].”
After Haiyan handed, Sustento and her buddies felt like one thing was lacking throughout the annual commemoration ceremonies. “We realized that there’s this hole,” she says. “[There’s no] area for individuals to come back collectively and share tales. [Only] amongst ourselves, we’d inform tales of how we survived [and] our experiences throughout the hurricane. Pero wala yung isang area na pupunta yung mga taong hindi magkakakilala [but there was no central space where strangers can gather and tell stories], and we need to present that.”
The primary Larog occasion ended round 11:00 p.m., however individuals continued to share their experiences till the next morning. “Wala na yung program. Wala na yung microphone. Pero yung viewers mismo nag-usap usap na sila [There was no more program. No more microphone. But the audience members remained and kept talking amongst themselves].”
On the 2023 gathering, Kay Zabala, a psychological well being coach, instructed her story about dropping 11 relations throughout the hurricane. “I skilled hell due to Yolanda … think about [losing] just one [family member], what about 11?” she mentioned. After Haiyan, Zabala sought psychological and psychiatric assist amongst different therapies in order that she may heal. In flip, she’s grow to be a mental-health practitioner.
Whereas the ache of surviving a local weather catastrophe won’t ever go away, Zabala says our our bodies and collective spirit are resilient: “We’re able to surpassing and overcoming something … as a result of we’re naturally able to doing that,” she continues. “Should you get wounded within the morning and [when you get to] the afternoon or night, makita ka nagsasara na [the wound will close]. You see that it’s already dried.”
After I requested Sustento concerning the therapeutic energy of storytelling, she mentioned that collective grieving helped the group immensely: “Nag-purge kami ng mga trauma namin [We purged out our trauma together]. Nakakalungkot as a result of yun yung pinagdaanan namin [It’s sad because we went through all of this], however on the identical time, it’s simply so lovely to know that you just’re not alone, [and] to know na could mga taong naiintindihan kung ano yung mga pinagdanaanan mo [to know that there are people who understand you and all that you are going through].”
Sustento says that telling her story has restored her sense of function. Although Haiyan took every part from her, she is aware of, “Sufficient pa rin ako [I’m still enough]. I can nonetheless contribute to one thing greater.” She wishes this for different local weather survivors as properly: “Hopefully, [they] discover it in them [that] hindi ito yung finish [This is not the end]. There’s nonetheless a lot extra.”
Strolling for Local weather Justice
The Philippines contributes lower than half of 1% of carbon emissions globally, but it’s the world’s most typhoon-stricken nation and has the very best threat of being impacted by local weather change. Because the menace rises, a group of humanitarian organizations have been demanding world governments reply to the local weather disaster that’s impacting nations, particularly within the International South.
Members and volunteers of Greenpeace Southeast Asia, Bikers United Motion, DAKILA, FundLife, Residing Laudato Si, Philippine Motion for Local weather Justice, and numerous archdioceses within the Philippines walked from Manila to Tacloban Metropolis—a journey of greater than 600 miles—to uplift their pressing name for systemic change by the Local weather Justice Stroll.
The Local weather Justice Stroll is a monthlong motion that started on Oct. 8, 2023, reaching Tacloban Metropolis on Nov. 8, 2023, the 10-year anniversary of Haiyan. The stroll highlighted the demand for local weather reparations, which urges fossil gasoline corporations to supply reparations for the loss and injury prices for the areas most impacted by local weather disasters, together with however not restricted to Tacloban Metropolis. The stroll additionally supported elevated local weather litigations worldwide, together with the Philippine Fee on Human Rights’ landmark inquiry “that discovered authorized grounds to carry large fossil gasoline corporations and different company entities accountable for his or her climate-destroying enterprise fashions that result in human rights harms.” This meant investigating 47 companies, together with Shell, Exxon, and BP, for human-rights violations that triggered the local weather disaster. Nevertheless, none of those companies have proven as much as face the communities who filed these landmark petitions.
Greenpeace campaigner Jefferson Chua believes that reparations is “the strongest type of accountability.” But he and his group have sensed the resistance from International North governments when discussing local weather reparations: “I do suppose it’s opening the wound up once more that pertains to the colonial previous of plenty of International North nations, as a result of we do know that the phrase ‘reparations’ connotes postcolonial meanings, proper?,” he says. “I simply don’t suppose [Global North governments] need to pay. They don’t need accountability when it comes to their historic emissions, and likewise, [they are] not acknowledging the accountability for the growth plans of [their] corporations.”
Past the Local weather Justice Stroll, Greenpeace Southeast Asia has been pressuring governments and corporations to account for his or her complicity in local weather change. This contains blocking entry to the Shell import terminal in Batangas, Philippines, in addition to establishing the Folks’s Local weather Justice Museum, which shows tales and artwork by local weather survivors.
Yeb Saño, lead walker of the Local weather Justice Stroll, says that “Filipinos refuse to just accept the vicious cycle of destruction and reconstruction.” As the chief director of Greenpeace Southeast Asia, he additionally mentioned in a Greenpeace assertion: “We additionally refuse to just accept that we’re lowered to numbers, so it’s our purpose to remind the entire world.”
Greater than 10 years after Haiyan, it’s vital to acknowledge that there are various methods to course of and survive local weather catastrophes—with community-led psychological well being interventions, play, and inventive storytelling—whereas additionally strategically stopping them from escalating any additional.
|
Gabes Torres
is a psychotherapist, organizer, and artist. Her work focuses on anti-colonial approaches and practices inside the psychological well being area. She additionally focuses on abolitionist organizing on a world scale. Yow will discover most of her work on her official web site, www.gabestorres.com, and social media platforms, together with Instagram. |
