THE earth is dying with thirst in Sitio Catindo, Malibatuan, Arakan Valley. Its people are hungry and desperate for food.
Situated up in the hilly mountains of Arakan Valley, not a single drop of rain visited this farming community in Sitio Catindo, as the sun beat mercilessly on the farming areas for over six months since August 2015, after the last harvest they had.
As the rain became scant and the dry spell left their fields gasping after the next planting season, the farmers in sitio Catindo had to race against rodents that left them scraps after hordes of the pests harvested everything in their farm lands.
“Grabe ang gutom tungod sa hulaw ug peste (So much hunger because of the famine),” this was how farmer Alan Salon described the plight of their community in Sitio Catindo, Barangay Malibatuan, Arakan Valley.
Standing near the coffin of his younger brother Lito Salon, 52, who died a couple of days after the tragic Kidapawan massacre took place on April 1, Alan sadly said both he and his brother went to join the barricade but decided to leave a day before the tragedy after his brother complained of intense and unbearable pain on his head and all over his body. He also said his brother felt he was burning with fever.
When they reached the center of Malibatuan that day, he decided to bring him to a hospital in Antipas which is still some distance from their barangay.
However, Lito was not able to recover and died about noon of April 3. His death certificate indicated “heat stroke” as the immediate cause of his demise.
Accordingly, Lito Salon, the deceased, could not bear to see his children going hungry anymore, as there was no more rice or even corn grits to cook.
Himself feeling sick because of the lack of food, Salon decided to try his luck and joined thousands of farmers from other drought affected areas in North Cotabato and trooped with them to Kidapawan City to seek assistance from the provincial governor.
But alas, luck was not to be his. Alan Salon recalled that the last planting season they had was in August 2015 before the dry spell was in its full force.
They planted corn, rice and had other crops like kamoteng-kahoy (Cassava) and still had some bananas.
But even before harvest time came in October, and the dry spell was peaking, they had to beat the rats that ravaged their crops and everything else. “Ang ilaga nauna pa mang-ani kaysa namo (The rats were harvesting our crops faster than we could),” he lamented.
He related that they were left with nothing and recently, they are now feeding on the “ubod sa saging” (the soft tissue of bananas) to survive.
He added that even tapping the rubber trees, which was another means of livelihood for them could only yield a few kilos which was sold at P14 per kilo.
He pointed out that before the drought, a farmer could tap 200 kilos but now the trees could only produce 50 kilos “tagok” (sap) and that is not good enough.
They sought the help of the local government unit in Arakan Valley and he was told that some 40 thousand pesos has been allotted as calamity fund to their barangay.
Sometime in early February 2016, Alan related that he was able to get some five kilos of rice from the town centers, but it was not even enough for a day.
Barangay Catindo, which is one of 28 barangays in the municipality of Malibatuan in Arakan Valley was listed among famine-stricken areas in the province and thus was allotted 40 thousand pesos as ‘calamity fund’ to be subdivided among 11 sitios located in the hilly and far-flung areas of the barangay.
But he said they did not even have food to eat anymore, how could they avail of this meager aid with transportation cost of P70 from Sitio Catindo going to the barangay centers?
When he brought back the cadaver of his brother to their community in Sitio Catindo, his heart was further burdened to find that his brother Lito’s family had nothing to eat.
What he did was borrow some rice from the nearest neighbor with a promise to give it back if the rice they demanded from the provincial government will be granted.
As the fact-finding mission composed of several nuns left Sitio Catindo with a heavy heart after paying our respects to the dead farmer 22-year old Darwin Sulang who was hit with a sniper on his forehead during the Kidapawan carnage, a gaping emptiness seems to fill our gut.
The faces of hunger filled every corner of our memory even as we saw along the way a glimmer of hope in two dump trucks filled with sacks of rice bearing the Red Cross sign on the front with the bold letters: from the City of Davao, heading towards the hunger-stricken communities of Arakan.