I first met this family in the first week of January of this year at the same place when I volunteered for City Hall to do photo-documentation of the houses devastated by Sendong.
The family lives in Bayug Island, they now put a new house just close to the washed out one.
It was the birthday of their youngest member of the family when I passed by their place in January. I was touched, I could not give any thing. I promised to myself to comeback and give something.
A month later, I went back , and through my friend’s donations I brought some toys for the kids and gave a little amount to the couple.
Thanks to my friends who sent money to me. I bought Matchbox toys for the kids, and they enjoyed playing it while I was interviewing the Niez couple.
Junior Niez works in a hollow-block factory. He is hesitant to relocate to Sta. Elena because of his job. But encouraged them that they could still find similar job close to the new relocation site.
This house is owned by the father of Junior Niez who takes care of the mango and coconut plantation. It was in this house that 13 families or about 70 people were saved during the flood.
When the water rose, and lumbers hitting the house the father, Junior decided to tie all the the children together, that if they died, all of the five of them could be found all at once.
Junior frowned when he saw his neighbours were the first to climbed the roof, without even helping them. Then he said after, “Sige lang.”
Rhona Niez and her kids playing the Matchbox toys.
They lost all their clothes, and only ate their breakfast and lunch at around 3pm.
Their house is located about a kilometer from the highway, so relief goods and donations is a scarce for them.
Let’s rebuild their lives and homes. Any help is very much welcome.
Donate through One for Iligan and volunteer for Gawad Kalinga.
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