Once Upon a Refuge Camp

“Life’s most persistent and urgent question is: “What are you doing for others?”- Martin Luther King

Uncertain Start

Late afternoon in January of 1980 I got on a service vehicle bound for Morong, Bataan snuggling myself within the space provided by my fellow riders. As we travelled from the central office of the National Housing Authority (NHA) nobody uttered a word and I wondered if I got on the wrong shuttle since I knew it was the Community Action and Social Services Development Group (CASSDEG) I was joining for the job. Actually, it was kind of a relief for me as I had time to look around and bask as we pass through the red orange sunset sky with the Bataan mountain range below it.

We got off for dinner at some point and here my seatmate and I finally fell into pleasantries, followed by almost everyone making their own tell tales like children suddenly out from their no-play hours. I didn’t know what to expect; my teammates were there for about a couple of weeks ahead of me but they looked like they hadn’t fully understood what they got into either. Yet on we went with the novelty of the experience an adventure to be had and the urgent need to earn a living our immediate push. Our destination: the Philippine Refugee Processing Center (PRPC).

The Clinic Floor

The rural health unit was a mini-clinic with a few beds to cater to patients. I was uncomfortable when we were provided with one of the two rooms for our accommodation, thinking there could be patients who would need the beds instead. May, the group head and supervisor was glad to see me (having worked together in an earlier NHA special project) and efficiently briefed me on my duties ahead.

It was almost midnight when I ended up on the floor with a banig (hand-woven mat of plant leaves, dried and dyed) and a pillow for my nonstop thinking head. A voice from someone on the cot beside my floor whispered, “Hey, why did you come?” to which I replied, “Need to work for pay; and maybe write about this.” She commented, “Great! I want to do the same.” That was how Estrell and I started to become the best of friends.

The Camp

The following morning, after trying to take a bath with clothes on in an open space with the deep well pump one needed to work for one’s water ratio, the team headed for the PRPC, some three kilometers away from where we were housed.

It was a big sprawl of 365 hectares of land, and buildings were newly built; it all looked a pleasant place to arrive at after days or weeks on boats adrift in the South China Sea into Philippine waters. The camp was divided into ten neighborhoods, each having ten or more buildings. In each building were ten billets; a billet was intended for 2 families, each with five or more members. There were allotted buildings for common toilets and baths for a neighborhood.

In a very short time, a big number of refugees from Laos and Cambodia came in groups and neighborhoods were organized to keep an ethnic group together. I was initially assigned in Neighborhood 1, a location for the Vietnamese refugees. Incidentally, my Vietnamese neighborhood faced a Cambodian neighborhood with just the main road separating the two groups. A neighborhood could house some 2,000 refugees from six to eight months until their processing have been completed and their countries of final destination ready to accept them. The camp, consequently, housed more or less 18,000 refugees at any given time.

Excerpt from UNHCR Philippines’ Nine Waves of Refugees in the Philippines by Laurice Peñamante, 07 July 2017:

Starting in 1980, the eight wave was made up of nationals from other Asian countries escaping regime changes in Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam. To accommodate the refugees, the Philippine Refugee Processing Center in Morong, Bataan was opened.

UNHCR worked with the Philippine government to shelter, train and ready the refugees for their new lives once relocated to foreign shores. Refugees were encouraged to attend classes to learn English as well as other education programs.

A total of 400,000 Indo-Chinese refugees escaped in boats to the Philippines from 1980 to 1994. Refugees were admitted into the country to be processed for relocation to other countries that expressed willingness to admit them, like the US, Canada, France, and Australia.

The Ship of Refugees

We were soon relocated inside the camp where we occupied a couple of buildings as staff housing. One night, the siren coming from Napot Point made us all wake up from our fatigue-disturbed sleep and made us hurriedly prepare to meet a shipload of Vietnamese refugees aboard a Philippine naval ship. Once at the dock, we entered the ship and saw the refugees in separate groups of families and friends, most still on the floor and looked as disoriented as we were when we awoke.

My teammates looked at one another and nodded our heads as a sign of “Let’s do this”. I spoke in almost shouting voice going through one side of the ship with “Speak English?” repeatedly, when a young man raised his hand in no time at all; I saw another hand raised on the side where one office mate asked the same question.

In about fifteen minutes we had our first set of refugee volunteers who could Speak English. They helped us interpret the next set of simple and clear instructions on how to proceed from the ship to the camp.

Before leaving the dock for the camp I smiled at my volunteer for the first time which he shyly returned. At that moment I knew the deeper reason why I was there: helping is man’s nature; it’s what make us human.

Reception, Community Organizing and ESL

Once at the camp, the refugees were guided to a big shed where they were made to form into lines and each staff went through an assigned line of refugees to assist the Reception, Processing and Deprocessing Group (REPRODEG). Here the roster of refugee names and other personal details was produced, after which we helped them acquire a bucketful of emergency items including blankets and pillows, and guided them to their assigned neighborhood and billets. Later, among the items provided were quinine tablets to guard against malaria since it was endemic in the place.

Community Organizing immediately started when refugees have settled in their neighborhood. We made them select a Neighborhood Leader as the main channel of communication from our office to the rest of the neighborhood members and a Food Leader who saw to it that all families received the food ratio due them. Weekly meetings were held with the leaders in attendance and at least a representative from each household.

Relaying information to the refugee population needed a regular group of English-speaking refugees in order to somehow break the language barrier. At this point, I was assigned to organize a group of interpreters and translators. They were instrumental in making our information materials be read in their native language.

Two of the Refugee Volunteer Group members were exemplary in the service: Phuoc and Hung. Doing work with Phuoc and Hung was a pleasure as they were taken by the community as knowledgeable, capable and charismatic young men. Phuoc was a jolly spirit and would usually turn a community session with laughter with his jokes; well, he would tell me when it was a joke or not. Once Hung helped as an interpreter while I gave a departure orientation to one of the first groups to leave the camp for resettlement. One of my lines was to remind them that the day they depart from the center could be one of their most special days, and Hung translated with the crowd clapping and smiling. In time there was the English as a Second Language training along with Cultural Orientation for the adult population, both provided by the International Catholic Migration Commission.

Overall center administration included a weekly inter-agency meetings where the management groups and VOLAGs (Voluntary Agencies) would come and share accomplishments, concerns, and plans for the following week. The NHA General Manager General Tobias (a Vietnam war veteran like the other group heads) served as Center Administrator and came personally in the weekly interagency meetings.

In due time I was made officer to assist the CASSDEG staff assigned in the ten neighborhoods, the camp now swelling with some 18,000 refugees to attend to. The international voluntary agencies and staff suddenly increased in number as well. Fides, our refreshingly lively new supervisor, was needed to assist our group head as camp responsibilities swelled. Work went whirlwind and uphill, like there was no time to waste and no time to breathe.

Center Life Was What It Was

There were highs. The refugees in the camp were talented, skillful, and endowed. As our working together became friendly, Hung shared that he was sad to have made the decision to leave his father behind, as it was his father’s intention to keep the family business even during the turmoil. A Laotian couple who were helping us serve their countrymen at the center once invited us for a meal, during which they shared that the wife is descended from the royal line.

At certain weekends, the Vietnamese neighborhoods held night cafes, ones that made them remember Saigon (Ho Chi Minh City). I had a treat of their coffee made in a shot glass (one that Filipino males would use when drinking gin) made out of instant coffee and condensed milk concentrate. I tried it a few times and got a kick out of it. Our Laotian couple taught us how to cook the “eternal” sardine ration and made it so palatable I brought the recipe home and made it a sardine treat everytime.

February of 1981, the first ethnic festival was held in the camp, the Vietnamese lunar New Year, Tĕt. The refugees were excited and glad as they marched along the center main road around the camp, much to our surprise and delight.

One of our staff, Bing, was tasked to initiate a cross-cultural activity for the international staff and Saturday nights of songs and dances became highly anticipated and appreciated.

There were lows. One day at almost midnight, a staff from the Area Supervisor’s Group (ASG) came knocking at our door to inform us that we were needed to settle trouble between two neighborhoods, one of Vietnamese refugees and another of the Khmers. It was reported that they were throwing stones over each other’s neighborhood roofs which was fueled by an argument between representatives from each group.

Immediately we requested the neighborhood leaders and some members to come to a meeting where I was at my harsh self during the proceedings. We never went too much into who or why as much as how the event would affect the processing of their resettlement; that it could mean delay adding to the length of stay in the camp. Further, they dreaded the thought of the "Monkey House", the term they coined to indicate the camp jail for offenders. The event never happened again.

One of the saddest experiences in working for the refugees was to be informed that a refugee has taken her life while in the camp, and that the most one could do was to sit beside the family while they grieve before their child’s wooden casket in one small building used to hold the wake.

I was grateful then as much as now that a new voluntary agency, the Community Mental Health Services (now Community and Family Services International) was established in 1981 to attend to the mental health needs of the refugee population. Thanks to Steve.

The staff was not spared from personal losses. My friend’s father died while she was working in the camp and we lost one staff to a vehicular accident when they were bound to attend Sunday mass in the town church. There were moments when it felt like too much to handle, missing one’s family and loved ones. The first time I went home after almost two months in the camp, my mother couldn’t recognize me from our gate; I was sunburnt and burnt out. Yet, work has to be done.

At the time when Phuoc and Hung were to leave the camp for resettlement, we took a moment to personally wish each other good luck. Incidentally, it was my 3-day off and I took the opportunity to take one of the buses bound for the Manila International Airport on my way home to Quezon City. I didn’t pick the bus where my two volunteers rode but at one stopover they saw me on my bus where I couldn’t bring myself to speak and all I could do was wave them goodbye. I found out later that Phuoc, in Vietnamese, means “good luck” and Hung means “spirit of hero”, as apt as it could get.

Papal Blessing

One rare occasion we were excited to dress up for an event was during the center visit of Pope John Paul II on 21 February 1981. We, the staff in community organizing, helped the refugee community to prepare and meet the Pope with each ethnic group bearing a gift to offer. It was indeed a timely call for compassion for the displaced population and a call for other nations to assist in rebuilding their lives.

Today, the Replica of Papal Shrine stands near the actual ground where we witnessed the Pope bestow his blessings on us, the international staff, and the Indochinese refugees in attendance. On 2nd of May 2011, this replica was inaugurated, the same day that Pope John Paul II was beatified a saint in Rome.

The Humanitarian in Us: A Refugee Haven

At present, the world holds 59.5 million people who are victims of forced displacement. Up to this time the Philippines has not wavered in its responsibility since the first wave of refugees were sheltered in the country.

UNHCR Philippines’ Nine Waves of Refugees in the Philippines by Laurice Peñamante, 07 July 2017: Then came the “Tiempo Ruso” (Time of the Russians): a second wave of 6,000 White Russians were welcomed under President Elpidio Quirino. The White Russian community in Shanghai, China were wary of approaching communist forces to the city and sent out a letter asking for refuge to countries across the world. Only the Philippines replied and granted their request. It was an important act that called for a regime for the international protection of refugees. The White Russians who settled in the Philippines set a precedent for the amendment of the Displaced Persons Act of 1948. The Philippines stood out as the only nation who expressed willingness to accept them even while the young republic was still reeling from the havoc of war.

My experience in refugee service has come in full circle as I happen to marry the grandson of Ernesto Quirino, the President’s brother and the father of my husband’s mother.

I was at the PRPC during its first two years and would not have opted for any other time in it.

I am grateful to my colleagues, supervisors, and heads of offices and agencies with whom I had the privilege to work for the refugee service and I’m glad I found the right time to write this experience to celebrate World Refugee Day today, 20th of June 2021.

In retrospect, we appreciate and value moments better when they have become memories.

The Head of Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in the Philippines Yasser Saad:

“I have served with UNHCR in many countries, each with their own protection needs. What makes Filipinos special is that they seem to naturally and intuitively understand and empathize with people who have been uprooted from their homes by war, conflict, violence, persecution, and calamities.”