(Daily Tribune) Last February, I went to Barangay Buso-buso and Barangay Banyaga in Laurel, Batangas with the director and staff of the Philippine branch of the Taiwan Fund for Children and Families (TFCF), a non-governmental organization (NGO) providing services to underprivileged children and families.
Since I came to the Philippines in 2019, Taal Volcano has erupted at least four times and forced the residents to flee to safer places. So I was keen to know why the residents still preferred to live there, what they did to make a living and what the impacts were to live with an active volcano and to experience multiple times of eruptions.
January 2020 was the first time Taal Volcano erupted when I was in Manila, and it really came as a surprise because I never thought something like that would happen in an area only about 50 kilometers away from Metro Manila. While I had visited Tagaytay a couple of times, it never hit upon me that Taal is an active volcano and it is actually dangerous living in the area… Read More