| The Bell Tolls for Class | ||||||||||||||||||||
| By Qiu Ru-lian Translated by Tang Yau-yang Photos by Hsiao Yiu-hwa | ||||||||||||||||||||
Insurgents landed at dawn and attempted to take over city hall. Using hostages as human shields, they advanced in bloody urban warfare. These were not scenes imagined in a novel or taken from a movie. They were real, actual events that occurred in the city of Zamboanga, located on Mindanao Island in the Philippines. This confrontation, which lasted three weeks, came to an end only after wreaking major havoc on the lives of local residents. It was but another violent chapter in a decades-old conflict that seems to have no end.
As legend has it, when Malays first landed in Zamboanga in the 14th century, the flowers that were blooming everywhere prompted them to name it Jambangan, “the land of flowers.” The Malays brought Islam to the native peoples there. The Spanish that came later began a colonial rule that continued for three centuries, during which Catholicism became engrained in much of the region. Even later, the American and Japanese periods left their own marks. These varied outside influences have given Zamboanga the diverse society that it has today. However, the contentious history of the area has drawn dark clouds over this sunny city.
A recent flare-up At 4:30 a.m. on September 9, 2013, armed forces of the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF), a secessionist political organization struggling to achieve Muslim independence, began landing on the shores near the serene coastal villages of Rio Hondo and Mariki. Government forces resisted the invasion. Fighting between the two sides extended to the city area of Zamboanga, including the street just behind the Zamboanga City Medical Center. In response, the government evacuated the patients and the staff to the sports stadium of a nearby college.
With urban warfare raging, the government closed the airport and imposed a curfew. Businesses closed. People fled their homes or left the area altogether to get out of harm’s way. Daily activities ground to a halt as Zamboanga entered a state of emergency. The military conflict lasted for three weeks, impacting over 100,000 people. The government opened many schools as shelters for the large crowds of people who had been forced from their homes. But these shelters were greatly overwhelmed by the sheer number of evacuees. To help accommodate those displaced by the fighting, the United Nations helped put up tents in Joaquin F. Enriquez Memorial Sports Complex. The largest outdoor sports area in Zamboanga became a huge shelter—in a matter of days more than 10,000 people moved in. At the height of the military conflict, more than 50 shelters housed over 100,000 people. But even that was not enough to accommodate all the people who had fled their homes. Many more tents went up along several large thoroughfares near the coast—on the sidewalks and even the road medians. Pitched side by side, the tents were poorly ventilated. They trapped so much heat that the inside of the tents felt like an oven, so people often stayed outside. Stench from rotten food and standing water was everywhere. Even six months after the fighting, government forces were still combing the areas that the rebels had occupied, looking for live ammunition and insurgents still in hiding. With the hopes of promptly returning to their homes dashed, many people left town to live with people they knew. Many others had no choice but to remain in the shelters. According to a government estimate, as of early March 2014, over 26,000 people from nearly 5,000 families were still living in shelters.
Back to square one We came to a neighborhood where government troops and rebels had traded fire. Houses all around were dotted with bullet holes. The KGK Building, the headquarters of the MNLF in Zamboanga during the fighting, had been pounded by government fire beyond recognition. Nearby buildings were burned to the ground. Government soldiers still kept watch on the streets to prevent the return of the rebels. Alfredo Ong, a victim of the fighting, led us to his home. The house where he had lived all his life had been reduced to bare posts as a result of the clash. Pointing at the charred remains of a rickshaw, he said, “That used to be the tool of my trade, but it can no longer help me bring in money for my kids to go to school.” Early in the morning of September 9, the sound of gunfire on the distant shores woke Alfredo, his wife Melody, and their youngest son. They hurried out of their home and saw thick smoke rising from the battle. The three quickly fled and sought safety elsewhere. Alfredo was worried about his three other children, who were working or attending school out of town. It took him a few days to establish contact with them. It was only then that he was certain that all six people in his family were safe. The family didn’t return home until early January 2014, after an absence of almost four months. They returned to a sad scene. Their house was gone, save a few posts. The two-story house across the street, which Alfredo and Melody had bought after their marriage, was severely damaged. The second floor had been blown away, and only the first floor, where they had used to run a shop, remained standing, although severely riddled by bullets. However, under the circumstances, it was good enough for the family to return to. “Though the government hasn’t officially approved our return, we have to move back. We have no income, and we can’t send our children to school,” Melody said of their homecoming. They needed to make some money, so they cleaned up the wrecked store, restocked some daily necessities and food, and opened for business. The Ongs were not the only ones who had returned without authorization. Many others also preferred living at home to staying at a shelter. “Food and kerosene are in demand more than anything else. Electricity is cut off at seven o’clock in the evening, so people need fuel for their lamps,” Melody explained. Touching a wall, Alfredo said wistfully, “It’s tougher making a living these days, but we’re fortunate that our whole family is well.”
No home to return to The Ongs were actually among the luckier victims because they lived in the city. Residents of villages along the coast fared much worse. The landing rebel forces had set fire to not one or two, but six villages. The stilted houses there, constructed of wooden frames and roofs of galvanized metal sheets, went up in flames. Tens of thousands of fishing families became homeless. Jernalyn, a 10-year-old girl, was from one of those villages. She and her family, eight people in all, now lived in a classroom at Talon-Talon Elementary School. Five other families shared the same classroom with them. It was not clear where one family ended and another family began. Their boundaries were only loosely indicated with clotheslines or cardboard boxes.
Thirty-four people lived in that small space. They slept either on desks or on the floor. They cooked in the hallway with charcoal stoves, and they washed themselves and their clothes outside with buckets and water from a hose. Standing water was everywhere, providing fertile breeding grounds for mosquitoes and other insects. Jernalyn timidly took all this in with her big bright eyes. She drew on a piece of paper a small boat and a stilted house that had been her home. On the day of the insurgent invasion, she was jolted awake from sleep. The whole family piled into their fishing boat and fled from the village. Though they escaped unscathed, their house did not. As they looked back from their boat, they saw their home going up in flames. With no home to return to, they moved into the school classroom. They had lived there for over six months when we visited them. “Life is hard now, but we hold out hope for better days,” said Nurmina, Jernalyn’s mother. Her husband and a few older children had been raising seaweed to earn some income, but they still could not make ends meet. They had to rely on the government and charitable organizations for daily necessities. “We’ve had to pinch pennies,” Nurmina said. “We all look forward to going home,” a young father called out softly from behind. “Once home, we can work to earn money and rebuild our houses.”
Like Talon-Talon Elementary School, part of Talon-Talon National High School was also turned into a shelter to accommodate people displaced from the coastal villages. These people continued to support themselves by fishing. Medina, 21, holding her six-month-old daughter, Nutkisa, sat absent-mindedly in the hallway. Nutkisa was not even a month old when Medina and her husband were uprooted. Medina didn’t have much to eat after they fled their home, so she was unable to produce much breast milk to feed the baby. She had no money to buy milk for her daughter, either. She could only feed her sugar water. The baby was therefore thinner than average.
The living conditions at the shelters were quite bad. Government statistics showed that more than 60 people in the shelters died of diseases such as dengue fever. Tzu Chi volunteers visited every one of these shelters. They brought daily necessities and nutritional supplements. They also offered free clinics to help safeguard the health of residents.
Wings clipped Talon-Talon Elementary School reopened in November 2013, not just for its own students but also those from Layag Layag village. But with some of its classrooms being used as living quarters for displaced victims of the civil unrest, the school did not have enough room for the enlarged student body. Each grade got to use the available classrooms for only two hours a day. “Whether we have classrooms or not, we try to do what teachers should do,” third-grade teacher Shareen G. Ismael said. She and her colleagues all wanted to help their students dispel the horrible dark clouds of the military conflict. “When the children returned to school, they were much too quiet and they didn’t run around outside much,” Ismael said. “We didn’t really teach them much from textbooks; instead, we spent time with them, talked with them, and gave them the hope of releasing the terror that filled their minds.” It took quite some time for the children to recover their childlike, lively nature. In the same way that elementary school students were impacted by the fighting, older students were, too. Some of the residents taking shelter at Talon-Talon High School were middle school students. They also had a hard time forgetting the terrible things about the military conflict. Their parents did not feel comfortable sending them back to their original schools, nor did the youngsters want to return. Therefore, when the high school reopened in November, it allowed the students sheltering there to study right at the school as well. The enlarged student population at the high school, like at the elementary school, resulted in a shortage of classrooms. Some classes were conducted outdoors, often under the scorching sun. Teachers had to talk louder in the open air, and many of them became hoarse. The house of teacher Nursharra was damaged in the armed clash. But when she returned to teaching, she gave her students all her love and treated them as her own. “We need to let the children know that whatever happens, we will be here for them,” Nursharra said. Instead of skipping lessons on such topics as social dancing and music to make up for the delayed textbook instruction, the teachers at the school stuck to the schedule in place before the fighting. They knew that the familiar routines would foster a sense of normalcy. When normalcy really returned, the horror would be more easily forgotten and smiles would return to the students’ faces.
Tzu Chi prefabricated classrooms After the needs of the victims in the immediate aftermath of the fighting had been attended to, Tzu Chi volunteers turned their attention to the overcrowded classrooms in the area schools. They decided to offer prefabricated classrooms to relieve the shortage.
Volunteers in Taiwan rushed to prepare materials for the project. In November 2013, volunteers from Zamboanga went to Taiwan to learn how to assemble the prefabricated classrooms. But just as the parts were ready to ship, Typhoon Haiyan hit the Philippines. The devastation in Leyte Province caused by the typhoon received top priority in aid operations. Compared to Zamboanga, the destruction in Leyte was even more widespread and serious, and the need for temporary classrooms more pressing. Therefore, the classroom materials originally intended for Zamboanga were shipped to Leyte instead. Taiwanese volunteers continued to produce additional parts, which finally reached Zamboanga in mid-January 2014. Local volunteers scrambled to assemble them. After the military clash, inter-ethnic tension and distrust understandably rose a notch or two. None of it, however, spilled over to the schools where the prefab classrooms were being put together. No distinction was made between the Chinese, Filipinos, Muslims, Catholics, or Buddhists working at the assembly sites; there were only people volunteering for the common good of the students. Nor did it matter whether one had had any prior experience in assembling prefab units. Some female volunteers had neither experience nor brawn, but that didn’t stop them from helping. In teams of five or six, they lifted and carried heavy steel frames. Almost none of them had done any heavy labor before this occasion, but they made up for their lack of experience with their number and enthusiasm. “My arms ache and my legs hurt, but after a few moments of rest, I feel like new and I’m ready to work again,” volunteer Guo Mei-zhu (郭美珠) said. Most Tzu Chi volunteers had day jobs, so they could help with classroom assembly mostly only on weekends. Therefore, workers in a cash-for-work program became handy. They quickly learned the ropes and became quite good at the task. On March 1, 2014, members of the Tzu Chi International Medical Association (TIMA) in the Manila area came to Datu Tuan Elementary School in Taluksangay to help with classroom assembly. They had just come off a three-day surgical free clinic that TIMA regularly offers in Zamboanga. Goiters, tumors in the thoracic or abdominal cavities, and hernias were among the most common ailments that the TIMA group treated there. When they arrived at the school, these volunteers had already been on their feet for three days. Prolonged standing had made their feet swollen, and prolonged focused attention had made them sore and weary, but still they went to the school to help put up new classrooms. Lying before them were not patients, but steel frames with which they obviously had little experience. “Where do I start?” Dr. Ronald Go (吳道銘) asked. He might as well have asked on behalf of the entire TIMA contingent. Volunteer Anton Lim (楊偉順), head of the Tzu Chi Zamboanga branch, put them to work all the same. Some of them teamed up and carried heavier objects, such as main steel frames. Others picked up screwdrivers and worked to join parts and give shape to the objects. They forgot how tired they were when they arrived at the school. They forgot about their sore arms, stiff backs, and aching legs—they just kept on working. Before very long, erected frames stood tall. The TIMA members shouted with joy at the sight.
“Helping others can indeed take on different forms,” Dr. Go said. “We’ve now felt the joy that Anton described on his Facebook page.” Thanks to the sweat and love of all these volunteers and work relief participants, 62 temporary classrooms at 7 schools were assembled and put into service.
With the help of the government and some charity organizations, people who once took shelter at Datu Tuan Elementary School were moved to temporary housing behind the school. Each family got to occupy wood-partitioned quarters of about 140 square feet—not much, but at least they were in separate units. Those quarters were primarily for sleeping; there was no electricity or water. During the day, residents spent their time outdoors: Men went fishing on little boats, women washed clothes and cooked, and children chased waves and played. These were not ideal living conditions, and things were certainly worse than in the old days. Their road back is long, but Tzu Chi volunteers will continue to care for them and other needy people like them to make their lives better, just as volunteers have done in Zamboanga for the past 14 years. |
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