SITIO INANURAN IS., Matabao, Tubigon, Bohol (PIA) – An international disaster relief organization, along with a religious order of the ministers of the infirm in the Philippines and its network of disaster volunteers handed 13 brand-new wooden pumpboats with 13 horsepower engines to fishermen families here, September 14.
The white fishing boats were given by Camillian Disaster Service International (CADIS) for the Camillian Task Force of the Philippine province, to replace the pumpboats these villagers lost during typhoon Odette, December 16, 2021.
The islanders, 170 of them all narrowly escaped the wrath of typhoon Odette, when the local government officials enforced an evacuation especially when the island, some 20 minutes by boat from mainland Tubigon, is just couple of meters above sea level during high tide.
The people escaped, but their fishing boats did not.
Over twenty boats which the owners thought were safe when they beached them on the island, were total wrecks as the surging waves dislodged most of them and crashing against each other, they broke into dangerous splinters and broken wood.
After the storm, the village was a total wreck even the community chapel which was the sturdiest structure and was partly protected by a concrete rainwater collector, was blown to smithereens.
The day after the storm, residents found they have to rebuild, start from the few then can salvage from their houses and get up.
The island, also happens to belong to the Saint John of the Cross Parish in Cahayag, Tubigon, where Rev. Fr. Roy Reambonanza ministers.
Reambonanza, a former Camillian seminarian before transferring to the Diocese of Tagbilaran, knows that the Camillians have launched disaster relief, and in Bohol have been actively handling out assistance from its local and foreign benefactors.
A visit to Inanuran by the Camillians in May and July helped the people rebuild their homes.
In partnership with Bishop Alberto Uy and the diocese of Tagbilaran, the group brought in coconut lumber, galvanized iron sheets and nails and helped rebuild some houses, according to island residents.
And to help the community recover, and start earning, fishing has to be back. Without their boats, it would be next to impossible.
Seeing the problem, the Society of Ex Camillian Seminarians Inc (SeCSI), a non-stock, non-profit organization of ex Camillian seminarians coordinated with Camillian Task Force in the Philippines to ask for CADIS the needed assistance, said Jerome Salvio Madanguit, SECSI president.
Four months later, Rev. Fr. Dan Cancino, of the Ministers of the Infirm, Camillian priest and a Korean brother came to turn over the 13 boats, all made by the island’s resident boat maker from the Camillian assistance.
Fr. Cancino was accompanied by Fr. Reambonaza of the receiving party, with SECSI Madanguit, Atty Florendo Columnas, Engr Christopher Manug and Ronald Pantanosas. (RAHC/PIA-7/Bohol)
