By Marchel P. Espina
Rights Report Philippines
TOBOSO, NEGROS OCCIDENTAL — Still reeling from the incident that claimed the life of her 15-year-old daughter, the mother sat silently on the gutter outside the Salamanca barangay hall, withdrawn and barely speaking.
When approached for an interview, the mother replied briefly as she appeared to be overwhelmed. “Indi lang (No, please),” she said in a hoarse, trembling voice as she looked away. She sat there in silence and quietly left a few seconds later.
Three months before the April 19 firefight that killed her daughter, the girl told her mother that she would be working either in Cebu City or Bacolod City. The girl was one of two children that died that day, along with 17 others, most of them New People’s Army guerrillas.
The family was shocked upon learning of the girl’s fate, Romeo Sultan, Salamanca’s barangay chairman, told Rights Report Philippines.
The mother was at the Salamanca barangay hall that day along with other residents to receive food assistance from the police and attend a psychosocial support session organized by the Provincial Health Office and its team of mental health volunteers.
Ritchie Valiente, coordinator of the Provincial Health Office’s Mental Health Program, said they were responding to the community’s need for psychosocial support.
“We need to process the individuals affected by the armed conflict. We need to hear their stories so their daily activities will not be affected and somehow they can go back to their normal way of living. They will not develop trauma or difficulty sleeping,” she explained.
The impact of the armed conflict on the community’s primary livelihood — farming and aquaculture — was highlighted during the post-session conference.
Some residents were reportedly afraid to go near the fishpond because bodies were recovered there. Out of fear, many would start going home as early as 6 p.m. and avoid staying outside past 10 p.m., unlike before.
Mental health volunteer Rollin Jay Libo-on, a guidance counselor at the Technological University of the Philippines-Visayas, said psychosocial support is important for communities that have suffered a critical incident to help them mitigate symptoms of anxiety, depression, and other mental health conditions that may arise from their experience.
He said mental health professionals can help people experiencing a crisis develop healthy coping strategies.
Libo-on said that during the psychosocial support session, he and his groupmate, Sister Germia Tocama of the Sisters of the Good Samaritan, worked with children ages 3 to 13.
“We helped them process their emotions through building rapport, singing, and art therapy…we did not dig deeper into what they experienced, but it was more about validating their emotions,” he added.
Tocama said the support the affected community received from their barangay, local government, and volunteers would help them realize that they were not alone and that people around them were supporting them.
She noted that some children initially withdrew, but they tried to reach out and make them feel included in the activities to help them process their emotions and divert their attention away from fear. (Rights Report Philippines)
