2 years after devastating quake, recovery in Bohol uneven

FINALLY, A NEW HOME Eusebia Anore finds a new home together with other 49 families at Sagbayan Hope Village after living in tents after the 7.2-magnitude earthquake that struck Bohol two years ago. LEO UDTOJAN/INQUIRER VISAYAS

(First of three parts)

TAGBILARAN CITY—Nowadays, Eusebia Anore is all smiles.

She and her family have been living somewhat comfortably in a simple house since January after staying for over a year in a tent following a powerful earthquake that reduced their shanty to rubble in Sagbayan town, Bohol.

“I am very happy because we have a new house better than our old one,” Anore said.

Before they were brought to the tent, Anore, her husband and their five children had lived in a nipa hut in Sitio Pabrika, Barangay Poblacion. Only the hut’s roof has remained standing.

Their new shelter is one of those made of plywood and galvanized iron sheets put up by Idea Philippines and the local government in what is called “Village of Hope,” a relocation site for quake survivors in the town’s Barangay Sta. Catalina.

Since their transfer, Anore said her children—Maricel, 21; Michael, 18; Mary Jane, 15; Mikaela, 13; and Mike Euseff, 3—had not gotten sick. They used to be ill at least once a month while occupying the hot and humid tent.

The Anores are among 95,884 families (465,146 individuals) who were rendered homeless when a 7.2-magnitude quake rocked Bohol and nearby Cebu province on Oct. 15, 2013. A total of 8,083 houses were destroyed and 42,771 damaged in Bohol’s 43 out of 47 towns and the capital of Tagbilaran City.

At least 222 people were killed while eight are still unaccounted for.

Seventeen of the towns were badly hit. These were Antequera, Balilihan, Buenavista, Calape, Carmen, Catigbian, Clarin, Corella, Cortes, Danao, Inabanga, Loon, Maribojoc, Sagbayan, San Isidro, Sevilla and Tubigon.

The quake, the strongest to hit the province in recent years, toppled centuries-old churches that Bohol has been known for and destroyed government infrastructure.

Gov’t assistance

Two years later, the aftershocks still persist even as reconstruction work is still ongoing or has yet to start.

The national government has set aside P2.3 billion in funds under the Bohol Earthquake Assistance (BEA) program and released through the Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG) to repair and rebuild 1,066 public facilities.

According to the DILG provincial office, the structures included 55 public markets, 63 waterworks systems, 56 civic centers, 66 provincial and municipal halls, 787 barangay facilities and 39 bridges.

So far, 73 percent of the BEA funds had been released. As of Oct. 14, 349 of the total number of projects had been completed while 287 are ongoing.

At least 293 are up for bidding while 137 have not yet begun.

Temporary offices

In Sagbayan, the epicenter of the quake, municipal officials and employees have been holding office inside a temporary shelter after their municipal hall was leveled. Mayor Ricardo Suarez said the construction of the new P65-million town hall would start this week on the same site.

Suarez attributed the delay to several revisions in the program of works (POWs) and the disqualification of several contractors from the bidding process for lack of equipment and documents.

Elsewhere in Antequera, Tubigon, San Isidro, Catigbian and Tagbilaran, reconstruction of municipal buildings, public markets, barangay halls and day care centers are ongoing.

But in Loon, the worst-hit municipality, it has barely begun. While work on its municipal hall, public market, municipal library and the Loon Waterworks System has not yet taken off, its barangays halls are nearly rebuilt.

Delays

Alan Realtor, acting chief of the municipal planning and development office, said the reconstruction of the two-story town hall was delayed due to revisions in the contractor’s design to make the structure resistant to typhoons and tremors.

The same reason was raised for the public market in Barangay Cogon Norte, a kilometer away from the original site.

Realtor said the draft plan of both projects had yet to be amended and approved by Mayor Peter Lloyd Lopez.

In Maribojoc, none of the major projects funded by the BEA have begun, except for the rehabilitation of barangay halls and health centers, Mayor Leoncio Evasco Jr. said. “We are only able to accomplish 20-25 percent of the projects because the release of the funding is slow,” he said.

“They said that the mayors have delayed the projects,” Evasco said, “but I don’t think so. Maybe there are some other mayors.”

Requirements

Ma. Louella Lucino, the DILG provincial director, traced the cause of the delay to the procurement process of the local government units, and not to the release of funds. The DILG said only a year had passed since the check worth P2.3 billion was turned over by former Interior Secretary Mar Roxas on June 6, 2014.

The funds can be downloaded immediately once the requirements are completed, Lucino said. These include program of works, bill of materials and estimates, technical drawing, specifications, structural analysis for two-story buildings, photos showing the extent of damage of the previous building, and construction schedule.

The DILG also requires certification by a building official and an advisory from the Mines and Geosciences Bureau that the new structure is outside the “no-built zone.”

Last year, during the first anniversary of the quake, Roxas scolded some mayors when he learned that they had barely accomplished anything in the rehabilitation effort despite the release of the BEA fund.

Niña Christine Montejo-Ipong, local government operations officer of DILG-Bohol, said some mayors were slow in implementing the rehabilitation projects for various reasons. One said he was busy with other projects and other executive functions.

Ipong said some local government units had not completed the POWs because these lacked signatures of concerned officials and technical specifications, among others. She, however, acknowledged that some mayors were not able to prepare the documents because they didn’t have enough eengineers and technical personnel.

Some didn’t even have building clearance for the projects. Sometimes, the data in the documents were inconsistent.

Ipong said the DILG could only remind the mayors to hasten the submission of the documents for rehabilitation to go full swing. (To be continued)