For whom the bells toll?
Three days before Yolanda hit land on 8 November 2014, the decisive Mayor Viscuso de Lira ordered forced evacuation and bought 100 sacks of rice for relief operations. As a result of this forward thinking, Balangiga suffered only 13 casualties and no record of any missing person. But Yolanda (international name: Haiyan) was a typhoon like no other. It still left Balangiga with massive damage in property and infrastructure. The town’s coconut industry suffered a 625 million-peso loss. Rice and fishing were also hard hit. Damage to private and public infrastructure was estimated at one billion pesos.
And yet, with national and global attention focused on the aftermath chaos in nearby Tacloban City, outside help to the no-casualty but equally devastated Balangiga arrived six days after the typhoon hit. “We went hungry for days,” de Lira said, as roads blocked by trees and debris made travel in and out of the town an impossibility. As soon as roads were cleared, de Lira tried to augment the meagre relief goods going to Balangiga by going as far as northern Samar to buy additional sacks of rice and assorted noodles. “The relief goods were simply not enough,” the mayor said.
But by end of November, Balangiga was ready to rebuild. It refused to rely on relief goods forever. Top on the priority list was infrastructure like farm-to-market roads and government centres. Yolanda had destroyed Balangiga’s municipal building, public market, and roads—all that was necessary for the leadership was to address and deliver the needs of its people, according to de Lira.
And as though destroying commerce and livelihood were not enough, Yolanda also severely damaged the symbol of the spirit that has spurred on Balangiga’s people for generations—the town church with its belfry that once housed the bells that played a major role in Philippine history.