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 The workload of call and data centers that are soaked in water and
choked with debris has easily been diverted to other Philippine
cities. Less simple is the choice faced by thousands of workers:
uproot and separate from family or stay in Leyte province and wait
perhaps a year for the jobs to return.
Tenant coconut farmers know they must clear flattened trees and
replant. It will be three years before the new trees are mature
enough to bear fruit.
In Tanauan, 20 kilometers from the coastal city of Tacloban
inundated by a storm surge on Nov. 8, coconut farms are a tangle of
snapped, uprooted and twisted trees. Farmers say that even trees
still standing will die because of damage to their cores.
"Those trees over there have been producing coconuts even before my
father was born" said tenant farmer Mario Duma, gesturing at a
3-hectare plot where just a couple of dozen out of 500 coconut trees
survived.
"If we get seedlings, we can plant again next year," said Duma,
shirtless under the harsh midday sun. "We will really go into hard
times if the government will not support us."
The coconut palm is known in the Philippines as the "tree of life"
because every part of it has a use. Fronds are used as roofing,
husks as floor cleaner or charcoal, white flesh can be eaten or
processed into oil, the sap makes wine. Flowering four times a year
for a harvest every three months throughout the decades-long life of
the trees, coconuts have long allowed millions of people across the
country to make a living.
But it's a rugged hardscrabble way of life. A harvest of 2,000
coconuts sells for 7,000 pesos ($160) and tenant farmers must share
that with landowners. Many have sought to leave farming behind. Call
center and other jobs in the blossoming outsourcing industry offer
air conditioned comfort and pay that is higher than average for
white collar work in the Philippines. Those opportunities were
multiplying in Leyte as more outsourcing companies moved in. Then
Haiyan came, leveling towns and dreams.
At a call and data center in Palo, 11 kilometers from Tacloban,
chairs, desks and computers are soaked in water and caked with dirt.
The building wasn't hit by Haiyan's storm surge but monstrous winds
peeled off iron-sheet roofing from the hangar-like structure as more
than 500 people huddled within, leaving only the steel frame
skeleton and soaking everything below. No one died on the premises
of the company that had optimistically named itself Expert Global
Solutions but some employees lost family.
Bosses visiting from Manila ordered harddrives of some 1,000 damaged
computers destroyed to protect confidential data of clients mostly
in the U.S.
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Power may be restored to the area in December, a crucial milestone
for businesses that hope to rebuild.
"It's impossible to resume operations now because all the computers
are damaged, there's no equipment," said quality supervisor RJ
Ripalda.
Some employees have decided to take jobs with the company in Manila
but that's not option for some, including Ripalda with two young
children.
"Others have the option to relocate, but others will have to find
other means to earn to buy milk for their children, rice," she said.
At billing services company Accudata, five employees were seated
around a table waiting for their cellphones to finish charging on a
power outlet run from a generator. They had just gotten some rice
and other supplies from the provincial relief operations center.
"It will take a year to repair our office," said Rosalie Alconaba, a
supervisor. "I will just pray our office will be repaired soon."
About 200 out of 1,000 employees of Accudata and affiliate data
processing company CoreData have put their names down for relocation
to Manila, the Philippine capital.
Those with families are reluctant to leave even though they have no
job options in Leyte.
"Even the department stores of Tacloban were looted, malls were
ransacked, so there is really nothing," said one employee.
Edgardo Sablay also fears tough times. The 48-year-old has spent
most of his life climbing tall coconut trees to collect sap from the
palm's flowers for Tuba, or coconut sap wine, and can earn 700 pesos
($16) for collecting 8 gallons in a day.
"I have not gone to school, I only know how to make Tuba," he said.
"I am not losing hope that there will still be trees that can
survive and which I can climb to feed my family."
[Associated
Press; TERESA CEROJANO]
AP writer Oliver Teves
in Manila, Philippines contributed.
Copyright 2013 The Associated
Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published,
broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
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