Marikina struggles to recover from 'Ondoy'

MANILA, Philippines - Marikina chief engineer Alfonso Espiritu, who has been with the city engineering office for 39 years, has helped the city evolve from a struggling municipality into the organized community that is admired today.

Now, three weeks after storm “Ondoy” battered his city, he and his men are working hard to pull the city out of the mud and mountains of garbage.

“This is the worst so far in our history, in our lifetime,” Espiritu said. “Never in our history did even our national roads get submerged in floodwaters. I have personally seen the development of Marikina.”

Espiritu spoke to The STAR in between mountains of garbage dumped in Sitio Baluban of Barangay Nangka, a low-lying area where a 2.5-hectare baseball field was converted into a dumpsite.

His own house was not spared.

“I myself have been a victim,” he said. “I, too, was paralyzed. My house, which is a bungalow, was also flooded because I reside near the city hall. First, it was rainwater, then all of a sudden the water became brown and waist deep.”

Marikina was one of the hardest hit by Ondoy, with 330 lives lost in the killer floods that came from the Marikina River, swallowing houses and sweeping away even heavy vehicles.

Now, life goes on for the residents, even if it is hard.

City officials like Espiritu, as well as city employees, are torn between urgent public service and obligations to their own families.

For three days since Ondoy lashed the metro on Sept. 26, Espiritu’s office could not operate because 90 percent of his workers – engineers, mechanics, drivers, and machine operators – had not yet reported to work because they were attending to their families.

Their entire fleet of utility vehicles and heavy equipment was damaged.

“Until now, our office is not yet fully operational. And not our entire workforce have reported,” Espiritu said.

Driver Nelson Paguinto, 37, agreed. “My house was totally submerged. I have relocated my wife and children but I have to leave them to work. It took us three days to get our payloaders working again,” he said.

The city experienced the same intensity of flooding in 1939 but at that time, the entire city was a rice field, so there were no casualties.

Almost done with the finishing touches

Two weeks before the storm, Twinville Village was already on the beautification phase of their community improvement project.

In January, the Twinville Homeowners Association launched “Safe Twinville,” a security campaign to stop the robberies plaguing the community, and has since then continued improving the subdivision.

Now, the village is a mess. The streets are mired in mud and littered with broken appliances.

“Look at what Ondoy has brought us,” said Paul Sison, president of the association of 475 families. “Last January, we launched a ‘Safe Twinville’ campaign to get rid of robberies. And just two weeks before the typhoon, we were on an aesthetics and beautification phase called ‘Pleasant Twinville.’”

After the flood subsided, 375 persons sought refuge in the basketball court, which was submerged in almost 15 feet of water, ruining the brand-new electronic scoreboard.

Behind it is the 11-kilometer Marikina River that swelled at the height of the storm.

Life goes on

In Barangay Tumana, a low-lying area near the Tumana River where informal settlers in the city have been relocated, 10,500 families with an average of five members each, were affected by the floods, according to Barangay councilor Cris Carurucan.  

City health officer Dr. Alberta Herrera said of the 330 deaths in the city, 33 were residents, 24 were non-residents, while 11 were unidentified. 

Thirty-year-old construction worker Jimmy Ulo, a father of three, was only able to save a few clothes, hangers, a pail, and a few sundry items.

Another Tumana resident, Maritess Guciles, 41, merely shrugged off the disaster that hit them and even the diseases that afflict her 17-year-old son John Carlo.

They have survived through dole-outs, relief goods, and divine mercy. “Sa awa ng Diyos, okay naman kami (Thanks to God, we’re okay),” she said.