Church officials eager to start
By Justin K. Vestil
The old churches that attracted the faithful and the curious to Bohol remain in rubble a year after the magnitude-7.2 earthquake last October 15, 2013.
The National Government — through the Tourism Infrastructure and Enterprise Zone Authority (TIEZA), the National Commission of Culture and the Arts (NCCA), the National Museum, and the National Historical Commission of the Philippines (NHCP) — set aside P650 million to reconstruct or restore national heritage sites in Bohol that the earthquake affected, including 25 churches of the Diocese of Tagbilaran.
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Sun.Star Eye: ‘Churches need to evolve’
A CHURCH is the people who fill it, not the brick-and-mortar structures that hold them, priests like to say.
But when some church buildings of Bohol collapsed last Oct. 15, 2013, they became among the most iconic and painful images of the damage the earthquake caused.
A year after the quake, these buildings have yet to rise again. Yet the communities these churches held together remain.
They raise funds, assemble for mass in makeshift wood-and-tarpaulin temples, celebrate fiestas. The new churches will look different, but also, one hopes, be more sturdy as a result of change. It’s the faith that stays the same.
(SUN.STAR PHOTOS/ALLAN CUIZON)
PART 2 of 5
How is CCMC’s recovery so far?
By Linette Ramos Cantalejo and Princess Dawn H. Felicitas
Shortly after last year’s earthquake, the Cebu City Government lost one of its busiest facilities in the delivery of basic services, the Cebu City Medical Center (CCMC).
The 45-year-old building on N. Bacalso Ave. was badly damaged when the 7.2-magnitude earthquake last October 15, 2013 shook Bohol, Cebu and other parts of the Visayas.
The calamity led to another: the public hospital’s untimely demolition.
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Sun.Star Eye: When in CCMC, ‘please be patient’
LIMITED space and angry patients.
These continue to hound the staff of the Cebu City Medical Center (CCMC) one year after the 7.2-magnitude earthquake forced them to transfer their operations to the smaller Bureau of Fire Protection (BFP) 7 compound.
“But at least now, the situation (in the temporary Cebu City Medical Center location) is a little better compared to before, when we first started our operations here…There are patients who cannot afford to go to private hospitals so they ask to just stay here,” says CCMC Chief Dr. Gloria Duterte.
(SUN.STAR PHOTOS/ALEX BADAYOS & ARNI ACLAO)
Quake shook up courts’ work
By Gerome M. Dalipe and Flornisa M. Gitgano
Court employees, judges and lawyers are waiting for a more definite plan from the Supreme Court (SC) on what to do about the Palace of Justice in Cebu, a year after it was declared off-limits following an earthquake.
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Court situation a real trial
HOW are judges, court personnel and lawyers coping with the working conditions in the temporary courthouse?
Like hundreds of thousands of other survivors of last year’s calamities, court officers, personnel and lawyers had to adjust to temporary surroundings and some inconvenience.
(SUN.STAR PHOTOS/AMPER CAMPAÑA & ALLAN CUIZON)
PART 4 of 5
Thousands ‘just wanted to help’
By Flornisa M. Gitgano
ROGELIO Daño, 27, was on his first month as a clerk in the Cebu Capitol when he was sent to distribute relief goods in Boljoon, two days after the earthquake that struck exactly a year ago.
Christian John Tandulan, 22, a community development assistant, still remembers the aftershocks he and co-workers felt while delivering relief goods from Cebu to Bohol.
Daño and Tandulan are just two of the thousands of government workers and private volunteers who did more than survive last year’s quake.
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Editorial: Rising from the rubble
Making schools safer ‘takes time’
By Justin K. Vestil and Razel V. Cuizon
Pupils of schools in Bohol that were destroyed or damaged by the earthquake still confront every day the effects of that calamity one year ago.
Many classes in northern Bohol are still held inside makeshift tents and classrooms made of bamboo and nipa. These temporary classrooms were built with the help of Parents and Teachers’ Associations (PTAs).
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Sun.Star Eye: At play in makeshift schools of Bohol