Teenager left to care for siblings after mom dies in Davao de Oro landslide

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After escaping death from the massive landslide in Maco, Davao de Oro, 15-year-old Zaira Tupos must now bear the responsibility of raising her two siblings with special needs.

Zaira has no choice but to pick up the pieces of her life after her mother and elder sibling passed away in the Feb. 6  landslide, which has killed at least 67 people and left 47 missing.

“Sabi agad ng kapatid ko ate, sumabay na lang tayo kina Mama. Salubungin natin ‘yung landslide, kaya ‘yun,” Zaira said in Filipino, according to a 24 Oras report by GMA Regional TV One Mindanao’s RGil Relator.

(My sibling told me, ‘Let’s just go with Mama.’ Let’s just face the landslide.)

Zaira added, “Kaya siguro pinauna nila kami, babalik sana ako sa landslide. Gusto kong salubungin pero inisip ko may kapatid pa ako,” she added.

(I guess that’s why they asked us to go ahead, I was going to come back to the landslide. I wanted to face the landslide, but I thought of my other siblings.)

The next time that Zaira saw her mother and older sibling was at a funeral home.

“Masakit talaga sa pakiramdam. Wala nang mag-aalaga sa amin kahit na makulit kami masyado. Ang inaalala ko lang ay ang kapatid ko na hindi mag-aaral kung wala si Mama,” she cried.

(It really hurts. No one will take care of us anymore even if we are still innocent minors. What I’m worried about is one of my surviving siblings, who refuses to study if my Mama isn’t there.)

Zaira is only one of the many children left orphaned by the fatal landslide in Maco.

Search and retrieval operations continued to be a difficult task Tuesday even after the weather has improved these past days.

“Around 2 this afternoon, nagkaroon na naman ng ground movement doon sa face ng landslide and it halted our operations,” said Incident Commander Engineer Ferdinand Dobli.

(At around 2 this afternoon, there was ground movement again at the face of the landslide. It forced us to halt our operations.)

The Philippine Coast Guard (PCG) has already deployed three more rescue dogs—Britney, Ivy and Tifa—to help with the disaster response effort. The trio will help their canine buddy, Appa, who was earlier able to locate at least three cadavers, one body part, and a three-year-old survivor.

Local authorities said 67 cadavers and four body parts of unidentified individuals have been recovered from Ground Zero.

Seventeen unidentified fatalities will also undergo a temporary burial process on Wednesday, according to the GMA Regional TV One Mindanao report.

“I just issued or signed an executive order. Starting tomorrow, we will switch to search and retrieval. Still, we are hopeful and positive na may mare-rescue pa tayo (That we will still be able to rescue someone),” Maco Mayor Arthur Carlos Voltaire Rimando.

Meanwhile, the Second District of Davao de Oro said it would seek a congressional probe into the cause of the landslide.

“Kahit sabihin natin na this is an Act of God o sabihin natin this is a calamity, there was an existing no-build zone. Kaya titingnan natin (That’s why we will investigate), there must be a person [or] public official responsible for this,” said Davao de Oro 2nd District Representative Ruwel Peter Gonzaga. — Jiselle Anne Casucian/ VDV, GMA Integrated News

This article Teenager left to care for siblings after mom dies in Davao de Oro landslide was originally published in GMA News Online.