RIZAL, Philippines – Maricar Libantino was about to spend the stormy day working as a laundress, when frantic calls from her neighbors summoned her back home: the mountain face across the house she was renting gave way to the relentless rain, sending an onslaught of earth and stone straight to her home.
Her two teenage sons, Lee and Junior, were in the house when it happened. It took a while for the villagers to excavate the tragic heap. They found the boys locked in a final, fearful embrace.
Everyone is at the mercy of nature, but when disaster strikes, it is often the poor who suffer the worst tragedies. Watch this story of a family in Antipolo, Rizal, during Tropical Storm Enteng and the southwest monsoon it enhanced — one of the still inevitable tragedies Filipinos grapple with as they weather cyclone after cyclone, year after year. – Rappler.com
Reporter: Bea Cupin
Videographer, video editor: Ulysis Pontanares
Graphic artist: Alyssa Arizabal
Producer: JC Gotinga
Supervising producer: Beth Frondoso