New Bataan: A year after Typhoon Pablo

The coconut trees and banana trees have grown back since my last visit more than ten months ago. I did not see any more crumpled roof on top of houses. Along the way, I saw that almost all of the houses have been repaired. Most of the houses now have new roofing. There were also rice fields now where banana plantations used to grow. All around, it is greener now, than what used to be brown before. New Bataan is back on its feet, so to speak.

At the Poblacion, it was business as usual. There were no more rubbles and debris. The school children are back in their classrooms. All the school buildings have been repaired. There were no more tents in the school grounds that used to be tent cities. At the rotunda near the municipal hall, I passed by the wall where we painted the words “Babangon Tayo New Bataan”. The color yellow paint we used has faded into white. Upon reaching the parish church, the whole area was clean and green. The parish center was back in order.

Fr. Edgar Tuling, the parish priest, has maintained his room at the back portion of the parish center. They now have a new kitchen and dining area at the back of the parish center. The wood workshop has expanded. It still continues to provide livelihood by making decorative and functional items out of fallen trees and wood debris. On one area of the parish compound, they have a sizeable vegetable garden planted with tomatoes, okra, eggplant, and ampalaya, among others. It’s a demo farm for the residents and parishioners to imitate. There is also a new parish formation hall. The old parish hall remained untouched, half buried in the mudslide after the typhoon. The parish rectory where the parish priest used to reside also remained unrepaired and abandoned up to this time.

Within several months after typhoon Pablo devastated Barangay Andap in New Bataan, parishioners who lost their houses in the mudslide lived in tents inside the parish compound. When Fr. Edgar Tuling was able to raise enough funds in less than a year, they were able to build the first fifty houses in a place they now call Mary Mediatrix Village. The houses are modest, with the lower portion and floor made of concrete, and the upper half made out of bamboo. The roof is corrugated galvanized iron with metal frames. After a thanksgiving mass at about midday, the houses were inaugurated with the presence of the municipal mayor, representatives from the local government, the residents and guests.

San Antonio de Padua Parish has put up the Mary Mediatrix of All Grace Foundation, Inc. to establish the Mary Mediatrix Village in Andap, New Bataan, Compostela Valley. With the help of St. Joseph the Vessel of Mercy Foundation and Couples for Christ – Answer for Cry of the Poor (ANCOP) and other groups including the Dominican Province of the Philippines, homes were provided to those left homeless by the aftermath of typhoon Pablo.

In the program after a lunch agape, residents who survived the calamity recalled their experiences of survival, amid the sobs of those who testified and those who were listening as well. One of those who testified survived alone – his wife and two children perished in the mudslide. He now lives alone in his new home in this new village. The parish leadership gave away plaques of recognition to the groups who helped establish the Mary Mediatrix Village – a light of hope in barangay Andap, New Bataan.