OCCUPIED – Survivors of Supertyphoon Yolanda have started to occupy units in the National
Housing Authority project in Barangay May in northern Cebu’s Daanbantayan town. (JUNJIE MENDOZA/CEBU DAILY NEWS)
TACLOBAN CITY – The National Housing Authority (NHA) in Eastern Visayas earlier this week announced that it is committed tcomplete the housing units for victims of Super Typhoon Yolanda (international name: Haiyan).
Constancio Antiniero, NHA regional manager, said they were doing their best to complete the construction of houses under the government’s “Yolanda Permanent Housing Program” before President Duterte steps down from office on June 30.
“The NHA is very much committed to completing the Yolanda Permanent Housing Program as directed by the present (Duterte) administration,” he said.
As of April 4, the housing projects spread across the provinces of Leyte, Samar, Eastern Samar, Southern Leyte, and Biliran, were 85 percent complete.
Of the 51,896 housing units they were tasked to construct, at least 43,801 were already completed and ready for turnover to the local governments.
In Tacloban City, considered the ground zero of the super typhoon that hit the island provinces of the Visayas in 2013, at least 4,502 houses of the more than 14,900 target units were still to be turned over to the city government.
The housing projects of the NHA were intended to help families who totally lost their houses due to the super typhoon, and those who remain or live in areas considered as danger zones.
Antiniero said among the problems that delayed the completion of houses were the compliance of requirements on licenses and clearances from other government agencies like the Department of Environment and Natural Resources and the downloading of funds from the Department of Budget and Management.
The current COVID-19 pandemic, he said, also hampered the construction of houses for victims of the super typhoon.
“Some of the developers encountered financial difficulties due to the pandemic and were forced to stop the housing project,” Antiniero said.
The housing projects started during the term of then president Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino III to help the victims of Yolanda which pummeled Eastern Visayas on November 8, 2013.
Yolanda, one of the deadliest Philippine typhoons, killed at least 6,352 people and left 1,771 missing.