Perhaps if you visited the barangay (village) of San Juan in Ormoc City early morning of Christmas in the year 2013, you would see the soft sunrise touching the tops of the trees laid bare by Supertyphoon Yolanda (international name: Haiyan) that devastated many areas of the Visayas region earlier that November. The rural barangay of San Juan is found just at the border of Ormoc, just before its boundary with the municipality of Merida.
On your visit, you might turn left from the Ormoc City-Merida Road, leaving behind the hard concrete road onto rough, dusty streets with rice fields on either side. The scenery is now and used to be a lush green. Back then, after Yolanda, it was predominantly brown, most of the foliage blown away by the typhoon. Beyond the rice fields, you would come across a bridge from which you would see a multitude of damaged houses. Some of the lucky ones had a G.I. sheet or two ripped off of their roofs. Those that weren’t as fortunate were completely destroyed altogether.
Perhaps in the midst of the rubble lit by the early morning sunrise you would find an interesting sight. You might find Girlie Arcillas pushing her partner, Danny Ciesneros, up the streets on a wheelchair. Once they reach level ground, they exchange places. Girlie would carefully help Danny up from the wheelchair. Danny would then push the wheelchair, with Girlie sitting on it for support, exercising his legs, both of which had been broken by a car accident the year before. This would become the pair’s routine for months. Sometimes they would go on like this for three hours, depending on Danny’s strength at the time.
Danny says he did it because he wanted to walk again, to work for his family and for himself. It was a kind of rehabilitation exercise for him, so he could again stand on his own legs again.
It would be six months before he would be able to do just that.
Danny used to be an electronics technician for an audio-video service center in the city. In June of 2012, he and Girlie had gone on what was supposed to be a short vacation in Manila to visit his siblings. As he stood on the sidewalk on his way back to his sibling’s house for an errand, a jeepney rammed into him and one other person. The impact broke part of his upper jaw and fractured his left arm and both his thighs.
Girlie rushed the injured and groggy Danny to the Philippine General Hospital, where they were told his injuries were not treatable there. He was then referred to the Philippine Orthopedic Center where he was admitted for almost two months. Because they did not have a lot of money, it took them that much time to prepare the six bags of blood and the two stainless steel fixators for the surgery that would keep his broken thigh bones intact while they healed.
After their discharge, Danny had to go to checkups where they were taught the physical therapy techniques that he and Girlie would later use for his recovery. However, after just two sessions, they had to stop going.
“The jeepney operator was no longer able to pay for any more treatment,” says Girlie. “That’s why we stopped.”
He would later find out that the other victim also lived, but suffered a head injury which left permanent damage.
“Sometimes, I thank God that my brain was not injured that day,” Danny, now 34 years old, says.
Despite his injuries, Danny was determined to work again.
“I had no work in Manila,” he says. “I wanted to go back to San Juan, even if the trip would be difficult.”
To help them get back, a friend loaned them a steel hospital wheelchair. The couple took a boat from Manila to Cebu, and then another one from Cebu to Ormoc.
They arrived late in November of 2013, after Supertyphoon Yolanda hit the Philippines.
“(San Juan) was very different when we came back,” recalls Danny. The strong winds and flood that the typhoon brought had destroyed their shanty and several other houses in the barangay. Temporarily homeless, they stayed with Girlie’s relatives for the meantime.
Danny and Girlie attempted to continue physical therapy on the wheelchair they already had. However, this proved difficult.
Despite the fact that the wheelchair had served him well, Danny shares: “It was already old. It had tubeless tires, which easily got stuck in mud. The footrest was also too short for my legs. If I used it for a long time, my hips and my legs would begin to hurt.”
Fortunately, after a serendipitous meeting between San Juan Barangay Captain Efrenia Cantero and Balay Mindanaw Foundation, Inc. Executive Director Rochelle Mordeno at the Ormoc City Hall following Typhoon Yolanda, Balay Mindanaw identified San Juan as among its focus communities for disaster response. These disaster response operations were made possible by Europe-based non-profit charity organization Johanniter International. Incidentally, Johanniter had also received wheelchairs from Motivation, an organization manufacturing high-quality and low-cost wheelchairs suitable for developing countries.
Early in December, these wheelchairs were distributed by Valentin Tocu, an orthopedics expert from Johanniter International, and Mariah Valdehueza, a Balay Mindanaw volunteer.
“The wheelchairs we distributed were Emergency Response Wheelchairs manufactured by Motivation,” says Valdehueza. “They were appropriate for the barangay’s rough terrain. They were also foldable and could be transported easily.”
Danny would be among the eight persons with disabilities in San Juan who would receive such wheelchairs. Like him, the other beneficiaries who were unable to walk due to conditions such as old age, arthritis and complications of diabetes.
Girlie says that the wheelchair was an early Christmas gift to her and Danny.
“On Christmas day, we brought Danny outside so he could look around,” she recalls. “We also started doing therapy on the pathway.”
This time, the wheelchair fit Danny better and he no longer felt pain in his hips and knees. It did not get stuck in the mud, as the old one had.
His will to get back to work was stronger than ever. Although they received disability support from the Department of Social Welfare and Development, as well as help from their families, Danny both literally and figuratively wanted to stand on his own.
“We are very thankful for (the wheelchair),” says Danny. “It helped me exercise and recover.”
By June, about seven months after they received the wheelchair, Danny could already walk short distances. As a symbol of his recovery, he and Girlie built another shanty by the river, a home of their own.
Despite his progress, his old employer at the audio-video service center would no longer take him. The job required him to lift heavy electronics.
“I still was not allowed to do heavy lifting,” Danny says. “Whenever I tried, I’d feel pain in my knees and in my side.”
With the recommendation of friends, he began to do home service electronics repairs in the barangay, the city and as far as the municipality of Albuera, some 30 kilometers away from San Juan. Because he was still not able to walk long distances, he would at first bring his wheelchair. Girlie would also accompany him to help do the lifting.
“She became my assistant,” says Danny with a smile. “We would ride on passenger multicabs to our customers. She would ride in the back, and I’d take up the entire front seat. Because of this, we’d have to pay for three, but other drivers understood our situation and would charge us only for two.”
Now, he does repairs without his wheelchair. Sometimes he has to ask his customers to help him lift electronics. “When I explain to them my injury, they are willing to help me out,” says Danny.
Danny now walks, albeit sometimes with a barely noticeable limp.
“My legs no longer hurt,” he says. “Except in cold weather, or when I overexert them.”
Danny is not the only one who has benefited from the wheelchair. In March 2014, in the middle of his recovery, Girlie’s 65-year-old father Liberato Arcillas suffered from a stroke which paralyzed the left half of his body.
“When I got the wheelchair, my father-in-law used to joke that ‘after you’re done with it, it will be my turn’,” says Danny, his voice tinged with sadness. “It turns out that he was right.”
Danny’s wheelchair now helps Liberato in his daily living.
“It helps us to transfer him when he needs to bathe or eat,” says Girlie. “We can also take him out on a stroll whenever he likes.”
His wheelchair has also served neighbors, particularly when anyone needed treatment in the city, which is a 15-minute ride away from San Juan. One of them, Eli Repante, was in a motorcycle accident that broke her leg. Danny immediately sent his wheelchair so she could receive treatment in the city.
“Just like me, she was injured in an accident,” says Danny. “I was glad we could lend her the wheelchair so she could get to a hospital right away.”
The challenges are not over yet for Danny and Girlie. Despite Danny being back at work, they still struggle for their day-to-day living. “Home service isn’t regular work,” explains Danny. “Most of the time, what I earn is just enough for our daily needs.”
In addition, their family still lives in a flood-prone area near the river. Whenever there is a threat of floods, they have to move to higher ground or to the second floor of Girlie’s sister’s house, to keep themselves dry.
Despite these, the couple still remain positive and thankful for the blessings and the assistance that have helped their family to stand on their own again. They are now also expecting a blessing of another sort: Girlie is now six months pregnant with their first child.
“We don’t know yet if it will be a boy or a girl,” she says shyly but excitedly. “It will be a surprise.”
Just like Danny has risen from his injuries, the barangay of San Juan is slowly but surely rising again from the tragedy that was Typhoon Yolanda.
And so if you visited the barangay early in the morning now, you would get an entirely different sight as you would have in December of 2013. Even though some of the trees still remain leafless from the typhoon, a fresh, hopeful green now colors the hills and the farms of the barangay.
Many of the houses and community buildings have been rebuilt, some of them a patchwork of both salvaged and donated materials. Instead of a couple doing wheelchair exercises to strengthen injured legs, you might find the pregnant Girlie preparing an early morning breakfast. You might also find Danny lovingly waving goodbye to his family as he goes off to find work. Walking again, at last.