ESA Lights Up a Pantawid Pamilya Home

Living without electricity is now a thing of the past for the Arrabis family. Marivic Arrabis, 38 and Zenas Arrabis, 48, together with their seven (7) children had to contend themselves with a “lamparilya” or a small gas lamp for many years.

“Our children would have to go to their grandparents’ house, which is few meters away from ours, when they needed longer time to study their lessons or when they had to watch their favorite television shows,” said Marivic.

The Arrabis family is a Pantawid Pamilya partner beneficiary. Three of the siblings (two in high school and one in elementary) are covered by the education cash grant aside from the health grant that their family gets from the government.

“Sangko sa langit akong kalipay nga naapil mi sa Pantawid kay kini nakadasig namo sa pagkugi pa sa among panginabuhi. (My happiness reach up to heaven when we were included as Pantawid beneficiary because it has encouraged us to do more to earn a living),” Marivic was all smiles as she said it.

As the head of the family, Zenas earns a living by catching fish at night and driving trisikad or motorized rickshaw by day. Marivic manages the household and sells Zenas’ fish catch. These livelihood activities earn the family P1, 000 in a day. However, it is not every day that Zenas could do both livelihood activities to earn income.

The Pantawid Pamilya partner beneficiaries are also taught a lot of things in the Family Development Session (FDS). According to Marivic they learned about husband and wife relationship, value formation, budgeting, and disaster preparedness. We even know the building and room where our family will evacuate during disaster and what things to be brought in the evacuation center,” Marivic gladly shared.

“The Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program grants helped us a lot. When we received the grant after the typhoon, we immediately bought rice, milk, vitamins and other school needs of the children,” recalled Marivic.

The Arrabis family suffered from the wrath of the super typhoon, which brought down their house. Made of light materials, the Arrabis’ house collapsed when the super typhoon struck on November 8, 2015. Nothing is left of the structure. In Marivic’s Cebuano words, she said “hagsa tanan ang among balay.”

“I was really worried where to look for money to rebuild our house. But despite of what happened, I never lost hope because I believe that there is life after Yolanda,” said the very hopeful Marivic.

Right after the tragedy, the Arrabis family went to their house and started to save discarded or damaged materials, which they could still use to build a makeshift house for them to stay.

“The barangay health worker and a staff from the local social welfare office came to our place. They interviewed us and took photos of our destroyed house. I felt so happy when after the validation, our family was included in the list of the families with totally damaged houses for the Emergency Shelter Assistance of the government, implemented by DSWD. Our family was blessed beyond words,” Marivic enthused.

Since the Arrabis’ house was totally damaged, the family received the amount of P30 thousand. According to Memorandum Circular 24, series of 2014 or the guidelines for the implementation of the Emergency Shelter Assistance (ESA) project for families with partially and totally damaged houses due to typhoon “Yolanda“ Families with totally damaged houses will receive P30 thousand and those with partially damaged houses will get P10 thousand. The amount was Marivic said that part of the grants she received from Pantawid Pamilya was also spent for some housing materials.

“Although ESA was not immediately given to us, I was hopeful it would be given to us eventually. So, our family waited for it. And it really pays to wait. When the ESA was released, we spent the P30 thousand for the house repair. Out of the P30 thousand, we were able to buy 7 pieces galvanized iron (GI) sheets in addition to what we have already bought, amakan or woven bamboo panel, cement and hollow blocks,” related Marivic.

Also, out of the ESA fund, the Arrabis family spent P5 thousand for the application for home electricity connection.

“Sukad mi nagpuyo dinhi sa Sitio Suba, Barangay Poblacion, Daanbantayan, karon pa mi nakatilaw og kuryente. (Ever since we live here in Sitio Suba, Barangay Poblacio, Daanbantayan, this is the first time that we get connected to electricity service),” revealed Marivic.

Now, the Arrabis family lives in a house with concrete posts, concrete floors and with GI sheets roofing.
“I have never felt so happy because we already have a safe place to live. It is made even safer because it is lighted up by electricity,” emphasized Marivic who could not contain her happiness.

From lamparilya, the Arrabis family now enjoys the bright light of incandescent lamp. ESA indeed, lights up the Arrabis home. (PR – Leah T. Quintana, Regional Information Officer)