Iligan starts rebuilding
ILIGAN CITY—At sunset, most of the 100 families in the tent city in Tambo village here mill outside their new dwelling units to enjoy illumination from the streetlights.
Schoolchildren who need to scan their notes and books troop to the well-lighted camp management center where there is a long table and several chairs because candles are not allowed inside the tents, only battery-powered lighting equipment.
Danilo Verano, once a Bayug Island resident, admitted that this inconvenience “can still be bearable but not for a long period.”
On Tuesday morning, volunteers started work on the first house to be built for homeless flood survivors. With a 20-square meter floor area, it is a prototype for thousands more to be built in the next few months.
Iligan Mayor Lawrence Cruz and Gawad Kalinga’s (GK) Antonio Meloto led brick-laying rites witnessed by volunteer builders and some local government employees.
The model house is set to be done in time for the Jan. 25 launch of the Gawad Kalinga “Bayani Challenge” aimed to build houses for homeless families.
The GK’s house-building quest was originally set for April but upon Cruz’s request, it was moved this month to respond to the shelter needs of flood survivors.
A month after the disaster wrought by Tropical Storm “Sendong,” the United Nations Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (Ocha) noted that about 26,000 survivors “remain in largely overcrowded evacuation centers” in Cagayan de Oro and Iligan while another 200,000 people “are seeking refuge in makeshift shelters and with host families in their areas of origin.”
“The exact number of people to be provided with shelter or shelter-repair assistance remains unconfirmed,” Ocha said.
It added that “tenure security and land occupancy conditions are the key challenges to be addressed urgently by the authorities.”
According to the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD), the number of houses destroyed in Cagayan de Oro reached 5,801 while 12,635 suffered damages.
In Iligan, 5,237 were washed out to sea while 14,868 suffered damages.
But the need for shelters increased after the national government issued a policy not to allow people once living in geohazardous areas to return and rebuild there.
In Iligan, the local government targets 6,000 houses using the core shelter assistance program standards of DSWD which has already given P242 million for about 3,457 units.
DSWD said its core shelters should be in disaster-safe relocation/resettlement areas.
Although made of indigenous materials, the housing units, it added, “can withstand up to 220 kilometers per hour wind velocity, intensity 4 earthquakes and other similar hazards.”
During Tuesday’s rites, Meloto announced that San Miguel Corp. is donating 2,500 housing units for Iligan evacuees, which would be built by GK.
“I am overwhelmed by the gesture of San Miguel,” Cruz said.
The GK house-building quest seeks to complete 300 units by February, and accumulate performance to 1,500 units by June.
