Year after killer typhoon, Philippine city struggles

ANIBONG, Philippines — Cindy Fuentes is preparing to see her seaside home destroyed again one year after a cargo vessel obliterated it as a deadly typhoon ravaged the coast.

Fuentes' rebuilt shack will soon be demolished when a salvage crew removes the massive, rusting memorial to Super Typhoon Haiyan, which killed more than 7,000 people when it blasted through the island chain on Nov. 8, 2013.

As the waters of a storm surge rose waist-high, Fuentes, 25, scrambled with her two children to a hillside school. She saw neighbors dragged away by the waves and says many died under the eight ships that rammed ashore.

Like other local families, Fuentes and her husband, Ronald Malabarbas, still chose to rebuild their lives here in the newly designated "no-build zone," which expands 130 feet from the sea.

"We rebuilt from materials we scavenged, and it's only 50/50 if the no-build rule will be enforced," Fuentes said last week, referring to lax enforcement of the regulation. "When the ship owner makes us leave, we have no savings to rebuild again."

For now, Malabarbas earns just dollars a day clearing debris under the boat that not only destroyed his first house, but will force his family to abandon their makeshift one.

A year after the deadliest Philippine typhoon in modern history, precarious lives and uncertain livelihoods remain widespread across this devastated region of an already poor country.

Although there are signs of recovery, just 100 of 14,500 promised permanent, inland homes have been built in Tacloban, the worst-hit city located less than a mile from the village of Anibong. Hundreds of people still live in shabby tents and thousands in crowded, temporary bunkhouses, mostly built by foreign non-profits.

More than 70,000 people live in "danger zones" near the sea, areas highly susceptible to powerful winds and waves from large storms. Authorities hope to relocate them, but Bernadita Valenzuela, the Tacloban City information officer, said regulations, such as the "no-build zone," are difficult to enforce.

"People have nowhere to go," she said.

City Hall lacks land, funds and engineers to move faster, and Manila should shoulder much of the blame, the 85-year-old Valenzuela said.

While the immediate, international response to Haiyan was significant, much of the funding remains stuck with the central government, which only last week approved a master-plan for rehabilitating Tacloban.

"Thinking about the government is frustrating, I just ignore it," said Ludette Ruiz, founder of Leyte Gulf Travel and Tours, who also runs popular Calle Z. Café, which reopened just two weeks after Haiyan. "We're all working on our own. The community helping each other, not waiting for the government."

With an average of 20 tropical storms hitting the Philippines each year, Tacloban will build a model evacuation and civic center to be better prepared for the next typhoon.

"The whole country needed to take it more seriously," said regional tourism director Karina Rosa Tiopes, whose home was destroyed. "We never had vulnerability assessments before" on tourist venues, she said, and no evacuation plans.

One of the region's largest schools where 1,000 residents crammed to wait out the storm last year has received USAID funding for a new, sturdier two-story evacuation center capable of withstanding winds stronger than those Haiyan packed.

"I'm so lucky, other schools don't have such a good evacuation center," said principal Imelda Gayas, who has started disaster training for teachers and plans student drills. "No one should be blamed or pass the buck. People were not prepared for that level of calamity."

Changing lax attitudes, however, is tough. Fuentes appreciates her luck in surviving but has no plans to flee storms in the future despite living just yards from the sea, where her daughter, 7, suffers trauma during rainstorms.

In the meantime, the family who will soon be homeless plans to attend the anniversary commemorations in Tacloban on Saturday.

"We will pray for our lost relatives, and for a better future," Fuentes said.