One year after the Taal volcano erupted, little relief for Filipinos who are forced to flee their homes

BATANGAS, Philippines: When the second most active volcano in the Philippines, Taal, erupted in 1965, Teodora Caraig, born and raised on Volcano Island, fled but returned a year later. She continued to raise her children and grandchildren on the island, which is located on a lake and surrounds the crater of the Taal volcano.

These days, the 85-year-old prefers not to think about the island.

Volcano Island was once home to generations of families like yours. They made their living fishing, farming and guiding thrill-seeking tourists around an active volcano, one of 24 in the Philippines.

All of that is gone now.

LEE: An island, a volcano, a home: Taal was the place where these Filipinos lived and made a living

Taal came to life in 2020, forcing hundreds of thousands from their homes.

“Our house, all of our belongings are under heaps of ashes,” Ms. Caraig told CNA from the emergency tent where she and her children have lived for the past year.

On January 12, 2020, the continuous eruption of Taal created a steam-laden column up to 15 km high and spewed ash that fell more than 100 kilometers away in the capital region, Metro Manila.

Residents fled in droves, as the state-declared danger zone expanded from 7 km to 14 km in a matter of hours. But before the January 12 eruption, Isla Volcán had already been declared a permanent danger zone.

After the 1965 eruption, residents still had homes to return to, Ms. Caraig recalled. Not this time. There are hints of vegetation a year later, but in most parts, what was once lush green land is now a cool gray.

Ms Caraig said that life on the mainland, away from Volcano Island, still takes some getting used to. “Everything is bought here,” he said, when asked how his family installed the bamboo poles that supported the covered outdoor extension of their emergency tent.

It is a far cry from the self-sufficient lives they once led: food from the crops they grew, water obtained from the lake. Solar panels provided electricity, and their fish pens were close to shore, so all they needed were small non-motorized boats.

Now, to survive, they sell homemade sandwiches to villagers on the mainland. The evacuation site that houses Ms Caraig and her children was intended to provide temporary shelter, but like hundreds of former Volcano Island residents in similar sites, they face permanent displacement from the island they once called home.

According to government data, nearly 870 people displaced by the 2020 eruption are still in temporary evacuation centers in the city of Talisay, Batangas province. The estimates are conservative, since these figures refer to centers located in a single city.

In one of those temporary evacuation locations, tents were set up in what would have been the parking lot of an unfinished building. The ground floor car park is practically open air, with only one of the four sides walled in.

LESS INCOME, HIGHER EXPENSES

At 55, Volcano Island born and raised fisherman Romeo Laluz has been unable to find work on the mainland that matches his skills. Their younger counterparts have done a little better, working construction and earning weekly wages.

With few options, Laluz has returned to what he does best, venturing out to the lake every morning to a fishing pen his family set up near Volcano Island. This brings him $ 10 a week, six times less than what he used to earn on the island before the Taal eruption.

“Our livelihood on Volcan Island before was good. Tourists would come and we would transport them around like boatmen. The income was good before the eruption,” he said.

Mr. Laluz’s expenses have also increased. Now, you have to buy fuel for motorized boat trips every time you go to your fold. Water and electricity, previously provided by the lake and solar energy, are also additional bills you have to deal with.

Mr. Laluz said he makes between $ 4 and $ 6 on a good day. But sometimes, there is no income.

“It depends on your luck that day,” he joked.

The Laluz family now lives in a government housing project in the town of Balete, southeast of Isla Volcán, established before the eruption.

The monthly payment for the house started at US $ 6 and will gradually increase to a possible US $ 30. It will take Mr. Laluz 30 years to pay off the house. “I’d be dead by then,” he said regretfully.

LOOK: A year later, life for residents living near the Philippines’ Taal volcano remains difficult

The monthly payments are just one of the family’s many financial concerns, said Mercy, Laluz’s wife. The family enjoyed a little respite when the fees were suspended after the eruption, but only for a year.

“We started paying again on January 5, but we don’t have a stable income. We used to get it from the island,” Ms. Laluz said.

“We had a livelihood on the island, but we are no longer allowed to return,” he added. “My children are still in school and not working.”

As the sole breadwinner in the family, Mr. Laluz works hard to support his wife and children, two of whom are in college.

“I worry about what will happen when I leave. My children can find work. But I work every day for their education, so they don’t end up like me, who didn’t finish school because of poverty,” he said.

Mr. Laluz’s children help from time to time when he goes fishing. But he will not allow any of them to work full time before graduating from college, no matter how difficult it is for him, so they will not be tempted to drop out of school.

“I remind my oldest son to finish school and not get married too soon, so that he can help his siblings and family. Just to help give our family some relief. We don’t need to be rich. Just a small relief that I no longer need to cross the lake every day to fish, since I too am of legal age ”, he said.

“WE CANNOT GO BACK”

Still, despite the hardships, Laluz can consider himself lucky, as adequate housing was secured before the eruption. Those who came after him have had to settle for temporary tents and structures.

Editha Malapitan, 55, and her extended family live in one of these tents in Balete. They depend on the generosity of their neighbors, those who live in royal houses, for basic needs like water, electricity and even sanitation.

Donations, which somehow helped ease the difficulties, plummeted during the COVID-19 pandemic, he said. “It’s hard to live here. Sometimes we don’t have money or food,” he lamented. “When it rains, we sometimes get wet. But of course we put up with it. There is nowhere else to live.”

The women the CNA spoke to said they have even fewer opportunities to work on the continent. Using their husbands’ meager fishing earnings as capital, they sometimes sell cooked sandwiches to supplement the household income.

One of Ms. Malapitan’s nephews asked when they would return to Pulo, the term the locals use to refer to Isla Volcán. The adults laughed and then fell silent.

“We tell the children that we cannot go back to Pulo anymore, because there is nothing there,” said Ms Malapitan. “Everything is buried. Our house is no longer standing. Washed. Our animals, our belongings. We couldn’t get any of them.

“We left the island with only our bodies and the clothes we wear.”