The cold floor of Tamiao Elementary School has become home for 89-year-old Jovita Bughaw Pareja and her son, Giodito. On the morning of November 12, just days after Typhoon Tino ripped through Compostela, the two lay side by side on a single banig (woven mat) with just a few pillow and blankets.
Their house, like many others in Barangay Tamiao, was completely erased by the storm.
For Giodito, survival, though a blessing, comes with its own heartbreak. He looks after Nanay Jovita, who is bedridden and fragile, her body weakened by age. Every movement requires patience. Every night on the cold floor is a risk. Still, she survived the storm. And for that, he is grateful.
Yet gratitude does not fill stomachs, nor does it rebuild homes.
Struggling to Start Again
As of November 12, twenty evacuees, Nanay Jovita among them, remain at the Tamiao Elementary School Evacuation Center. They are the ones who have nowhere else to go. Others have slowly returned to their damaged homes, patching what they can. But for some families, there is nothing to return to.
Barangay Tamiao is one of the hardest-hit areas in Compostela, recording 13 casualties and seven missing persons. Lives were lost. Homes were swept away. Some neighborhoods now exist only as memories.
Inside the school-turned-shelter, residents sleep on desks pushed together to mimic a bed. Some wait for the next relief distribution, while others sit quietly in corners, clinging to what they managed to salvage.
For Giodito, caring for his mother in these conditions is a daily struggle. Nanay Jovita urgently needs food, clean water, medical attention, and a proper bed to rest her fragile body on. The floor beneath their banig grows colder each day.
A Call for Help
If you wish to extend assistance, you may visit the Tamiao Elementary School Evacuation Center. For coordination, please reach out to Brgy. Captain Leilamie Talingting.
Even a small act of kindness can mean the world to families like Giodito and Nanay Jovita — families holding on to hope, waiting for the day they can sleep under a roof they can call home once again.
