Typhoon-battered Ormoc donates P300K to Cebu City

Ormoc City sustained severe damage from supertyphoon Yolanda but went ahead and donated P300,000 to Cebu City’s fund raising campaign to build a new hospital.

Ormoc City administrator Francis Pepito visited City Hall yesterday to hand over the check to Mayor Michael Rama.

Pepito said the allocation was made shortly after Cebu City was rocked by the Oct. 15 earthquake but the release was delayed after Ormoc City was hit by Yolanda last Nov. 8.

Pepito said they made sure to deliver their check after the Cebu City government gave Ormoc a P1 million donation to help in rehabilitation efforts.

Mayor Rama said he would use Ormoc’s donation for the city’s “Piso Mo, Hospital Ko” campaign which has raised P8 million with a target of P1.5 billion for a 1,000-bed capacity hospital.

The hospital project was cleared by the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) of any obligation to secure a permit from its office.

Several private doctors and architects are helping City Hall plan a new hospital, possibly in the South Road Properties while a temporary 100-bed field hospital has been set up across the quake-damaged CCMC grounds in the regional Bureau of Fire Protection office.

Sen. Allan Peter Cayetano yesterday said he is helping Cebu City lobby for the allocation of funds for its hospital project and the rehabilitation of the Pasil fish market which were both damaged by the Oct. 15 earthquake.

The senator earlier donated P100,000 of his own money to the campaign.

The Taguig City government headed by his wife as mayor donated half a million pesos to the hospital project and pledged to hold activities to raise more funds.

Cayetano said funding from national government calamity rehabilitation funds may be released in the first quarter of 2014. Chief of Reporters Doris C. Bongcac