Eastern Visayas survivors to get 100 bunkhouses

TACLOBAN CITY—The government will build more than 100 bunkhouses to serve as temporary housing for the families in Eastern Visayas that lost their homes due to Supertyphoon “Yolanda.”

The bunkhouses will be built in Tacloban (10 units) and Palo (10) in Leyte province; Basey (11) and Marabut (18), Samar province, and Guiuan (26), Hernani (30) and Giporlos (3) in Eastern Samar, said Rolando de Asis, regional director of the Department of Public Works and Highways in Eastern Visayas, at a briefing of Task Force Yolanda at the Leyte Sports Development complex presided by Social Welfare Secretary Corazon Soliman.

De Asis said each bunkhouse, made of galvanized iron sheets, plywood and cement for the floor, was estimated to cost P959,360. Each bunkhouse would have 24 rooms, with a dimension of 7 x 28 meters and a window for ventilation. The bunkhouse would also have a common cooking and bathing area. Each room could accommodate between five to eight persons, Soliman said.

Soliman explained that the roads and drainage canals would be built during the site development to ensure sanitation among the families that would occupy the bunkhouses.

The funding for the site development would come from the local government units concerned, she added.

Soliman said the proposed bunkhouses were similar to the facilities constructed in Cagayan de Oro City for the survivors of Typhoon “Sendong.”

The respective local government units, in coordination with their respective social welfare and development offices, would identify the families that would occupy these bunkhouses, she said.

But the families who had pregnant mothers, senior citizens and physically disabled would be given priority, Soliman said.

Soliman said these families would be staying at the bunkhouses until their houses were built at the permanent relocation sites.

Tacloban City administrator Tecson John Lim said the proposed bunkhouses for the city would be built in the Abucay area and along the national diversion road in Barangay Caibaan.

Lim, however, could not say when the construction of these bunkhouses would start, since the city government still had to develop the proposed sites.

The Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) records showed that 273,782 families across the region were displaced due to Yolanda. Of this, 55,927 were from Tacloban.

The DSWD does not have any figures yet on the number of destroyed houses in the region.