Fear over safety of Zamboanga evacuees’ houses growing

REP. RODOLFO Biazon tests the strength of a housing unit for displaced residents of Zamboanga City. LIZA JOCSON/INQUIRER MINDANAO

ZAMBOANGA CITY—Elsa Punzalan, a dress maker in Sta. Catalina, was sorting out school uniforms that she had made when she heard a loud crash on Sunday.

“When I checked on it, I saw one of the housing units collapsing,” Punzalan said.

The housing unit she referred to was among those being built under the Zamboanga City Roadmap to Recovery and Reconstruction program on Lustre in Sta. Catalina village.

Jimmy Villaflores, barangay chair of Sta. Catalina, said the unit collapsed even when “there was no strong wind, not even an earthquake.”

Punzalan said when she got to the area, where a housing unit was also being built for other families like hers, she saw hollow blocks crumbling down.

“I am one of the beneficiaries of that project and I will stay in that place soon. If the foundation of that structure is weak, what will happen to us?” she said.

Punzalan added: “We survived war and fire, we may just wake up one day covered with substandard construction materials.”

On Wednesday, Muntinlupa Rep. Rodolfo Biazon was nearly hit by bits of concrete and hollow blocks as he and other members of the Joint Congressional Oversight Committee on Risk Reduction and Management were inspecting the housing project.

Biazon had lightly struck a portion of a wall of a housing unit and was taken aback when his hand went through.

The congressman tapped the wall again but it gave way and pieces of hollow blocks fell on Biazon, hitting him in the arm.

“I did not only see, I felt it,” he told reporters when asked if the housing units were indeed substandard.

Biazon, who chairs the joint oversight committee, said it was now up to the National Housing Authority (NHA) to correct the defects in the housing units.

“I would suggest that you do this early enough,” Biazon said, referring to the measures that should be implemented by the contractor to ensure the durability of the units.

Biazon also asked Al Indanan, NHA Western Mindanao chief, to also fix houses on stilts that were being built for the Badjao, a seafaring tribe also displaced by the terror attack on the city by followers of Nur Misuari and the armed response of the government. Julie Alipala and Liza Jocson, Inquirer Mindanao