ZAMBOANGA CITY, Philippines— US Ambassador Philip Goldberg said rehabilitation efforts in the city, particularly a resettlement program for residents displaced by a terror attack by followers of Moro leader Nur Misuari and the armed government response, were moving slowly.
“These things always seem to be too slow,” Goldberg said during a visit here on Friday.
But, he said, rebuilding homes was important because the displaced people “need to have places to go that are decent and rebuilt.”
“I think there’s a lot more to be done clearly and there are still many IDPs (internally displaced persons) who are living at a stadium as I understand it, and we’d like to help as would everybody in the resettlement of those people as soon as possible,” said Goldberg, who attended the signing of a memorandum of understanding for the US government-led program, Cities Development Initiative, with the city government.
Data from government agencies show that two years after Misuari’s followers took over parts of the city and fought an armed battle with government soldiers, there are still 22,513 individuals, or 4,130 families, living in shelters and in the main evacuation camp, Don Joaquin F. Enriquez Memorial Sports Complex, here.
Remnants
At the grandstand of the sports complex alone, 1,957 families, or the equivalent of 10,763 individuals, continue to stay in shacks, bunkhouses and tents.
Goldberg said the US government was bent on helping the city government in terms of humanitarian assistance.
“We have been involved in the assistance after September 2013. We [are continuing] some of our efforts and we want to, obviously, help people resettle,” he added.
Mayor Ma. Isabelle Climaco-Salazar acknowledged “the great help and continuous assistance” that the US government, through the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), has been extending to the people of Zamboanga.
“They assisted us at the height of the siege and now they are mostly assisting us in the early recovery and postrehabilitation phase,” Salazar said.
She admitted that the rehabilitation and recovery efforts were moving at a slow pace because she wanted to ensure that all housing units that would be built were of good quality.
Tough choices
Salazar said things would not get better next month, which meant the planned transfer of the displaced from the grandstand to safer homes on Dec. 15 would not push through.
“I would like to tell the people that we’ll encounter another slowdown this December,” she said, adding that she would rather be moving slowly to give people a permanent site than move quickly to give them transition houses.
“Even if the pace is slow, for me, let us be slow but let us be sure that the housing units that will be given are of quality,” Salazar said. Julie Alipala, Inquirer Mindanao