Kanlaon evacuees moved out of schools to make way for students

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More than 4,000 evacuees are moved from school buildings that served as their refuge since the December 9, 2024 eruption of Kanlaon Volcano

NEGROS OCCIDENTAL, Philippines – The school year opened not with promise, but with dislocation and despair for over a thousand families of Kanlaon Volcano evacuees, moved out of classrooms they had called home for months, to make way for the return of students on Monday, June 16.

A total of 4,048 people or about 1,282 families in La Castellana town were moved over the weekend from school buildings that served as evacuation centers since the December 9, 2024 eruption of Kanlaon Volcano.

The evacuees, whose homes are within the extended six-kilometer danger zone, came from five barangays: Cabagnaan, Biak na Bato, Sag-ang, Mansalanao, and Masulog.

OPEN SPACE. Office of Civil Defense tents stand in an open space beside La Castellana National High School, sheltering some evacuees from Barangay Cabagnaan. La Castellana PIO

Most families were relocated to covered courts and tents provided by the Office of Civil Defense (OCD) within their respective barangays. However, all of Barangay Cabagnaan remains inside the danger zone, and around 700 residents were transferred to roughly 130 tents pitched in open spaces near La Castellana National High School (LCNHS) and La Castellana Central Elementary School (LCCES).

Another 200 evacuees from Cabagnaan are still staying in 12 unoccupied classrooms in LCNHS’s senior high school building, after enrollment sharply declined in the school.

Biak na Bato barangay chairman Joselito Martinez said they have been struggling to ensure the safety of over 700 evacuees now camped in and around the village’s covered court.

“When heavy rain poured Sunday night, I had no choice but to send some of the vulnerable evacuees back to their homes in the danger zone,” Martinez told Rappler. “One woman had just given birth, the other one is old and frail, so I took the risk of sending them to their respective homes so they can rest well.”

Martinez said the covered court has no walls to shield evacuees from the wind and rain, and most OCD tents were already worn out and leaking.

“The start of classes is really the start of new miseries for them,” he said. “We were given only one box of food per family since Saturday. After that, we had to use our barangay funds to set up a presentable kitchen.”

Martinez said he has asked one of Negros Occidental’s congressmen for support, including food and other aid.

AT A COVERED COURT. Modular tents are set up at a covered court for evacuees from Barangay Sag-ang in La Castellana, Negros Occidental. Negros Occidental Capitol

“I really pity our evacuees. Since December 9, 2024, they’ve been suffering. But I have no choice. We have no funds. We cannot afford to look for a permanent relocation site away from Kanlaon Volcano,” said La Castellana Mayor Alme Rhummyla Nicor-Mangilimutan.

She asked the Regional Incident Management Team (RIMT), Office of Civil Defense (OCD), and the Department of Education (DepEd) to consider allowing evacuees to return to classrooms at night for humanitarian reasons, then go back to tents or courts during the day.

Raul Fernandez, chief of the Regional Task Force Kanlaon, said the decision is now up to the education department.

Ian Arnold Arnaez, spokesperson for the DepEd Division in Negros Occidental, said the local government would need to formally write the schools division superintendent and submit a relocation plan.

“There, we can see until when the evacuees will stay again in schools after a 15-day allowable period for internally displaced persons of certain calamities like the Kanlaon eruption, based on certain laws,” Arnaez said.

Nicor-Mangilimutan said a relocation plan is ready but cannot be implemented without funding.

“The provincial government promised to purchase a feasible area for relocation, but I can’t say when that will happen,” she said. “If our expenses from last year would only be reimbursed, perhaps we could move on. A permanent relocation site is what we badly need now to settle our more or less 4,200 evacuees.”

La Castellana has spent over P42 million since the June 3 and December 9, 2024 Kanlaon eruptions.

Residents within the six-kilometer danger zone remain prohibited from returning home, as the Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology (Phivolcs) continued to warn of possible magmatic or pyroclastic eruptions.

On May 1, OCD Administrator and National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council (NDRRMC) chief Ariel Nepomuceno announced in Bacolod that President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. had approved a P203.88-million aid package for evacuees in La Castellana, La Carlota, and Himamaylan in Negros Occidental, and Canlaon City in Negros Oriental. 

The funds are to be distributed as follows: P48.5 million for La Castellana, P63 million for La Carlota, P62.54 million for Himamaylan, and P29.72 million for Canlaon. – Rappler.com