INQUIRER FILE PHOTO
“Four walls, one toilet, one room.”
This was how a Palace official described the temporary lodgings awaiting some of the families displaced by Tropical Storm “Sendong,” as Malacañang on Tuesday announced the release of more than P200 million for the construction of core shelters on a 10-hectare relocation site in Iligan City.
Edwin Lacierda, spokesperson for President Benigno Aquino III, said a check for P241,130,000 had been turned over to Iligan Cty Mayor Lawrence Cruz through Social Welfare Secretary Corazon Soliman.
“This money will go to the construction of the core shelters. By core shelter we mean four walls, one toilet and one room,” Lacierda said in a briefing.
He said Soliman, Health Secretary Enrique Ona and Communication Secretary Herminio “Sonny” Coloma had gone to Iligan City to personally oversee reconstruction and relief efforts in the devastated areas.
Lacierda said the shelter project was expected to benefit 3,459 families in Iligan.
The government is also building bunkhouses for the thousands of evacuees in Cagayan de Oro following reports that they would be moving out of the public schools and stay in tents when classes resume next week.
Soliman said an initial P7.3 million had been turned over to the military’s National Development Support Command to build bunkhouses for Sendong victims in Cagayan de Oro.
At least 10 bunkhouses are expected to be built there before the end of the month. Costing P350,000 each, a bunkhouse will have 12 rooms (at one room per family), a kitchen and latrines, she said.
When classes resume on January 3, evacuees staying in school buildings would have to move to tents, according to Benito Ramos, executive director of the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council.
The Department of Social Welfare and Development has also begun distributing family access cards to flood victims in a move to stop bogus claimants of relief goods.
“The family access cards will be given to those who had been interviewed and verified as among those affected by Sendong. We are coordinating with concerned local government units for the issuance of the access cards,” Soliman said.
Also in Iligan, the city government said it expected the local economy to recover in three months but that it might take much longer for the lives of affected residents to return to normal.
Melvin Anggot, the city information’s officer, said the rehabilitation of damaged infrastructures was now underway with the help of the P60-million fund given by President Aquino during his recent visit to the city.
Anggot said the city government hoped to move displaced residents from the evacuation centers to their new homes before the end of the month or in early January. “The houses can be rebuilt but the psychological and emotional impact of the disaster would be difficult to deal with,” he said. With a report from Tito N. Fiel, Inquirer Mindanao