Thursday, August 14, 2008 Anger, anguish beset displaced N. Cotabato folk
KIDAPAWAN CITY -- Trauma, anger, and anguish are just few of the many emotions painted on the faces of thousands of war victims in North Cotabato, said a missionary Oblate priest who is actively involved in inter-religious dialogue in Pikit town.
"You can't blame them from being angry. They were thrown out from their lands. Their relatives were killed, so what can you expect," said Fr. Eduardo "Ponpon" Vasquez, director of the Inter-Religious Dialogue (IRD) of the Immaculate Conception Parish in Pikit.
Vasquez and members of the parish-led Disaster Response Team (DRT) have been actively involved in relief distribution since Monday.
"Food, clothing, and other relief items had come from different sources, from the local government units (LGUs), church organizations, and religious schools and other institutions of the Oblates of Mary Immaculate and the Notre Dame System in North Cotabato," Vasquez said.
The Oblate missionary, who spent more than four years in the hinterlands of North Upi in Shariff Kabungsuan before his assignment in Pikit, said he pitied those evacuees "who have lost everything because of the wars."
"They fled on foot, taking only themselves or the clothes they wore at that time. They all want to be spared from the fighting," he said.
One of the evacuees that Vasquez identified as Marlon Dantes, an out-of-school youth from Barangay Silik, also in Pikit, has suffered a mental disorder after a number of mortar shells dropped just few meters away from his house on Sunday night.
Dantes, together with his family, joined thousands of villagers that fled from their homes at the height of war.
"I heard him say words like, intelligence and 'traydor'. I don't know what he meant by that," said the priest as he urged experts on trauma healing to help Dantes and others who had experienced the symptoms of stress and shock because of the wars.
Stress and trauma, according to a doctor in the North Cotabato Provincial Hospital, can result to loose bowel movement (LBM) and other abdominal problems.
A number of children and the aged in the evacuation sites are suffering from LBM, the doctor said.
Free medical and dental mission were conducted Tuesday in Buisan warehouse, one of the 31 evacuation sites located in Pikit.
The United Nations World Food Program (UN-WFP), the world's largest humanitarian agency, has also provided rice assistance to some 339 families who have sought temporary shelter in Buisan warehouse along the highway in Pikit.
Each family received 25 kilos of rice, according to Dulia Sultan, wife of Pikit Mayor Sumulong Sultan and focal person of the WFP in North Cotabato.
Sultan said the WPF is set to distribute around 2,300 bags of rice to 5,366 internally displaced families in Pikit alone.
"In the wake of ongoing clashes in North Cotabato, the WFP has agreed with the Philippine government to provide an initial 400 metric tons of rice worth US$308 thousand to assist 96,000 persons for at least one month, in the conflict-affected communities in North Cotabato," the WFP statement said.
The WFP has started providing food assistance to a number of conflict-affected zones and poor rural communities in southern Philippines since 2006.
WFP country director Stephen Anderson said he fully understood the situation in North Cotabato remains fluid and is concerned over the growing number of persons displaced by the violence between the armed forces and the MILF.
To date, the National Disaster Coordinating Council (NDCC) recorded some 160 thousand evacuees after the three-day fighting in North Cotabato.
"Many of the affected population are women and children, and we are concerned for their wellbeing and stand ready to support humanitarian needs. We hope for peace, so that these families can return to their communities," said Anderson. (Malu Cadelina Manar)
