THE landslide that hit a portion of Sitio Sindulan, Barangay Tina-an, Naga City made Renante Ravanes an exile from the village where he started a family in the past two decades.
“Maunsa na ang Sindulan (What will happen to Sindulan)? Mawala na ba ang Sindulan (Will Sindulan be gone)?” he said.
Ravanes has 17 relatives and in-laws who went missing after the landslide hit the sitio in Barangay Tina-an, Naga City last Wednesday.
Ravanes’s house remains standing, but he said he does not have a heart to go back to Sindulan.
“Naa miy mahinumdoman nga bati anang lugara, maayo untag nindot, OK ra (We now have bad memories of the place),” he said.
Ravanes said Sindulan is a small community. Most of his neighbors work for Apo Cement Corp.
For Lucrecia Payata, a resident of Sitio Tagaytay, Tina-an, she said she felt pain and anger upon seeing her house still standing.
The landslide brought down her house about 40 meters from where it originally stood.
“Nganong naa pa man tawon siya (Why is it still standing there)?” she said.
No one from her family died. She was selling vegetables in Carbon Public Market in Cebu City when she heard of the news about the landslide.
Evacuee Arnold Espera, 44, said he heard a story from a neighbor who said a stranger told two backhoe operators not to cut down an old tree in Tagaytay last month, telling them that something bad will happen.
The quarry workers did not listen to the old lady. A few days later, a crack appeared and the spring dried up.
Last Wednesday night, Ravanes said they were celebrating the 80th birthday of the mother of his wife Cynthia Campanilla Ravanes. They had roasted chicken, pancit and cake for dessert.
On the following day, he was awakened by her sister shouting for help. He rushed outside and saw the houses in the neighborhood buried in the rubble. KAL