‘Yolanda’ evacuees directed back to Villamor

A day after causing confusion among relief volunteers, officials overseeing the evacuation of “Yolanda” survivors from the Visayas to Metro Manila closed the just-opened processing center at Camp Aguinaldo, Quezon City, and reopened the original site at Villamor Air Base in Pasay.

In an interview Friday, Director Alicia Bonoan of the Department of Social Welfare and Development’s National Capital Region office clarified that the processing would be done solely at Villamor, where evacuees had been arriving onboard military C-130 planes since Nov. 12.

Bonoan explained that the Camp Aguinaldo center was supposed to serve as “an additional processing center” but then “we found it difficult to maintain two [centers].” One challenge that cropped up was transferring the new arrivals by bus from Pasay to Quezon City, she said.

On Thursday, Philippine Air Force spokesperson Col. Miguel Okol told reporters that Aguinaldo was chosen as the site of the new processing center because of space constraints at Villamor.

But on Friday, Okol said it was decided that the Villamor site would just be provided with additional manpower, “so the turnaround would be faster,  people are processed faster.”

“The leadership found that it’s more efficient (at Villamor) since everything is already here,” he said.

Bonoan said the DSWD had also observed that most of the evacuees stayed for only two to three hours at the air base grandstand before they were fetched by their relatives or provided rides out of Villamor.

The various groups of volunteers, who had set up tents offering assistance to the evacuees, could stay at the air base, but “the only thing different now is that we have more government agencies putting up their own tents,” she said.

Meanwhile, the Pasay city government said its tent city at Villamor Air Base Elementary School would continue to accept evacuees. As of Friday, the temporary shelter housed 91 people, according to spokesperson Jonathan Malaya.