Gov’t bunkhouses are insults to typhoon victims—CPP

PHOTO COURTESY OF PUBLIC INFORMATION AGENCY REGION 8

LUCENA CITY, Quezon, Philippines – The Communist Party of the Philippines joined the growing critics of the controversial construction of bunkhouses for typhoon victims in Leyte and Samar provinces.

“Aquino’s substandard, inhuman and overpriced bunkhouses in Leyte are a grave insult to the victims of the supertyphoon ‘Yolanda’ (Haiyan),” the CPP said in a statement Thursday.

The party also assailed President Benigno Aquino III over his rehabilitation projects which the communists claimed would only benefit big private businesses and his close political allies.

“The Aquino regime is taking full advantage of the massive destruction caused by the recent supertyphoon and other storms to attract and justify the allocation of large amounts of funds and funnel them into the profit-hungry big private big business companies, especially those close to the ruling clique,” it said.

It added: “Local big capitalists and their foreign funders are drooling over the investment heaven being opened by the Aquino regime in the supertyphoon-devastated areas.”

The Nov. 8 typhoon, the worst to ever hit the country, damaged or destroyed some 1.1 million houses, leaving some 4.1 million people homeless.

At least 203 bunkhouses — each unit divided into 24 rooms that would house as many families — are being built in more than a dozen towns in Leyte and Eastern Samar, according to the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH).

However, an international shelter group, Camp Coordination and Camp Management, reported that the bunkhouses did not comply with internationally recognized standards and best practices.

Architect and urban planner Felino Palafox Jr. has described the temporary shelters as “substandard and not fit for human habitation.”

Rehabilitation czar Panfilo Lacson, investigating the possible collusion between contractors and a local politician to profit from the construction of bunkhouses, has tapped the Philippine National Police Criminal Investigation and Detection Group to look into reports that the contractors and local politician were pocketing 30 to 35 percent commissions.

On Wednesday, Chief Supt. Benjamin Magalong, CIDG chief, disclosed that the purported irregularities in the construction of bunkhouses “have basis” prompting the authorities to continue investigation.

The CPP pointed out that the reported overpricing of the construction of bunkhouses in Leyte was not the first of such cases under the Aquino regime.

The party noted that early last year, residents of Compostela Valley had also exposed the overpriced bunkhouses constructed by the Aquino administration for the victims of typhoon Pablo.

The CPP also questioned the wisdom of prohibiting the typhoons victims, particularly fishermen who had long been living along the coastline, from rebuilding their destroyed houses.

The government has ordered “no-build zones” at least 40 meters from the coastline at high tide purportedly to restore mangroves and marine life.

“Tens of thousands of small fisherfolk families and poor toiling people have been displaced from their homes and places of livelihood by Aquino’s no-build policy, and, they are bound to suffer even more with the subpar and inhuman conditions of the bunkhouses they will be cramped into,” said the CPP.

The CPP called the “no-build zones” order as “half-witted policy.”

“In fact, the poor fisherfolk have been serving as the first-line protectors of the mangrove areas, as they are the ones who know full well that healthy mangrove areas make better fishing grounds,” the CPP said.

The CPP chided the Aquino administration for “making a big show of so-called rehabilitation.”

The CPP said the government has yet to put into place any measure that would address squarely the urgent problems of the people for immediate livelihood.

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