Along a bend in the road heading toward San Fernando, where tourists usually slow down to admire the ridge before the overlooking restaurants, two elderly residents sit beside what used to be their home, sorting through scraps of wood that survived the storm. Materno Lastrado and Leticia Lagan have lived on this patch of land for most of their lives, raising children and tending to crops that once sustained them. Now, nearly everything around them has been reduced to wreckage.
For most of their lives, the couple lived in this wooden house, raised their children here, and grew old by tending to thier animals and small crops. When the storm arrived, they took shelter in the only structural corner that felt safe, the low space under the house, beside the chicken coops. They survived. Nearly everything else did not.
Their story reached the public through Eden Halasan, a netizen from El Nido who posted a plea for assistance on their behalf. “They live in this house much of their life, raised children and grow old together. After the typhoon, they lost everything,” Halasan wrote, explaining how the storm had stripped the couple of their home, animals, and livelihood.
The pair now depends almost entirely on relief goods while trying to salvage what few usable materials remain. “They lost almost everything and now rely on relief goods,” Halasan said.
But what they need most are things no relief pack can fully cover: lumber, roofing sheets, walls that can withstand the next storm season. “They urgently need materials for their house; woods, roofing materials, walls, and groceries,” she added.
Halasan noted that even the community’s resources have been stretched thin. “We are running short of funds already since we sent relief to the island and to Cebu also yet I could not turn a blind eye on them,” she wrote, explaining why she decided to post publicly.
“Any help will be of great value, clothings, groceries, a kilo of nail even a piece of wood or whatever. We will accumulate them and help them restart.”
Halasan also encouraged those willing to assist to go directly to the couple’s place.
“They live beside the road on the way to San Fernando, right before the overlooking restaurants, on the right when you come from El Nido,” she wrote. For others who prefer to coordinate through her, she added that they may send a message through her Facebook account.
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