BY: REY ANTHONY H. CHIU
TAGBILARAN CITY, March 16 (PIA) –Given
the opportunity, craftsmen residents of the evacuation site in Ma. Rosario
Inabanga would rather work to get their food than take the queue for food
relief.
“It is not that we are too proud to
accept we need food, but given the chance to work and redeem our pride
devastated by the earthquake, we would,” candidly admits a skilled bamboo
weaver here who has been producing ‘amakan’ before the great earthquake.
Here, bamboo craftsmen with many
residents of Riverside, Ilaya and Ma. Rosario find themselves weaving amakan
when they are not working on their rice farms.
Amakan is a decorative walling material
crafted from weaving stripped bamboo, a construction material that abounds in
most areas in Bohol.
But after earthquake of October 15,
residents could not go back to their cracked farms and weaving has become
secondary to keeping the family safe from cold nights and scorching sun.
Now living in too hot for the day
tarpaulin tents and surviving on food relief, residents have slowly risen
enough to move on and rethink of living on their own.
“We are now surviving on relief and a
little income we can squeeze out from the abandoned farms and a little bit of
odd jobs,” Barangay Chairman Nestor Tabiliran admitted.
We do not want this, we want to earn a
little so we do not rely on the food here, he confessed.
At the camps, people also think weaving
amakan is the safest income earner as of now.
At the camp, camp managers, admit too
that people have put earnings high on their list of priorities.
“Most of the men and women here know
how to weave amakan, noted Tabiliran, who adds that they used to supply amakan
walling sheets to native supply stores, and earning their living.
“The only sensible thing to do to earn
is go back to weaving, but we are so hard-up to finance it,” Tabiliran
said.
For this, he and his bamboo weavers
appeal to shelter and livelihood assisting organizations to give them the
chance to supply their amakan needs so they could also earn.
“If only we could find a partner, we
could have them order the materials so we could weave back,” they said.
At the Pulongpulong sa Komunidad, which
the PIA and IOM brought in Ma. Rosario last week, residents said together they
could produce a good number of amakan sheets in a week, which international
organizations could also use for their rebuilding activities.
“It fits,” said Christie Joy Bacal of
International Organization for Migration (IOM) who has been into Camp
Coordination and Management Cluster, meaning matching the weavers to livelihood
assisting groups helping Bohol.
She also hinted that shelter assisting
groups can also help Ma. Rosario by buying their produce.
“We are here to help and when people we are helping also help
themselves, it becomes a good sign [of recovery],” she said.
(mbcn/rahc/PIA7-Bohol)