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First Anniversary of the Earthquake in Tagbilaran

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The first anniversary of the earthquake that rocked the islands of Bohol and Cebu was celebrated on October 14, 2014. It was declared a public holiday yesterday in Bohol.

One year has quickly passed and except for a few, most of the people have gone back to normal lives. Bridges and roads have been repaired and made passable, houses have been reconstructed and many of the infrastructures, both private and public, are now under reconstruction. Nevertheless, full recovery remains a challenge for the people in general and may never be achieved in the near future. Repairs of old Church buildings, for example, have yet to commence. Few churches could no longer be repaired. They may just have to remain as ruins for people to remember. Yesterday the dioceses of Tagbilaran and Talibon remembered the day by celebrating masses in all parishes simultaneously. The masses were preceded by ringing of church bells and making some sort of noise barrage lasting 40 seconds, the time lapse of the actual earthquake itself. The masses were intended to remember the dead due to the earthquake, to show solidarity with those who suffered so much, expressing gratitude to the donors, benefactors, and volunteers in the relief and rehabilitation efforts, and plead the almighty God to spare us from further disastrous calamities in the future.

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You have been updated about the massive relief efforts conducted by different organizations and institutions for the earthquake victims. Proudly, one of those hard working organizations is the Arnoldus family (SVD family) that includes the SVDs, the Sisters and friends of SVDs all over the world. Figures could attest that we are no mere ordinary players when it comes to calamity interventions as shown also in our interventions in other previous calamities with similar intensities. We had distributed food, drinks, clothing, housing assistance funds, medicines and school supplies, utilizing logistical units and volunteers from both Holy Name University in Tagbilaran and the University of San Carlos in Cebu. The latest activity we had was the distribution of school uniforms and school equipments to Busao High School, the school located within an SVD parish.

JPIC-IDC, an SVD run NGO, just turned over 40 low cost housing units to the people in a small island off Tubigon town along with 40 units of solar panels.

In the name of the beneficiaries, we would like to thank once more for your generosity of hearts. The people of Bohol are now willing to pick up the road to fuller recovery from here on.

May God bless everyone!!

SVD-PHS JPIC team