Thousands Still Homeless after Yolanda

TWO years after super-typhoon Yolanda devastated Eastern and Central Visayas in 2013, only 16,544 housing units out of 205,128 targeted for the typhoon victims – very much less than one-tenth – have been completed, the House of Representatives was informed at a hearing the other day.

The principal reason, the Pag ibig Loans said, was that less than half of the P61.2 billion earmarked for the undertaking had been released by the national government. The amount released was P26.9 billion, out of the total P61.2-billion budget for the project.

Funding was only part of the problem. The other part was delay caused by difficulties in purchasing land for the housing projects. This in turn was blamed on conflicting presidential directives on safety zones, unsafe zones, and no-dwelling zones, governing the sites for the projects.

The NHA officials said they hope to complete the 205,128 housing units by 2017, but Rep. Rodel Botocabe, chairman of the House Special Committee on Climate Change, said that at the rate the work is proceeding, that deadline won’t be met.

The Senate Committee on Planning, Housing, and Resettlement headed by Sen. JV Ejercito had also met to look into the issue. He said he understood the problems of the NHA, principally because of the funding. He appealed to the heads of the NHA and the other government agencies and officials involved in the typhoon rehabilitation program to consider the feelings of the survivors – for whom every day remains a struggle for survival – and to do everything possible to speed things up.

The Yolanda housing problem is actually only a small part of the overall housing shortage in the country where, according to the Chamber of Real Estate and Retailers Associations (CREBA), some 5.5 million families are still homeless. It expects the shortage to balloon to 6.5 million by 2030. But that calls for a separate undertaking that will take hundreds of billions of pesos and an extended period of time. The next administration can perhaps draw up a program for this.

Today, we must concentrate on the more immediate need to help the victims of super-typhoon Yolanda. It has been two years since over 6,000 people were killed in that calamity and thousands of families lost their homes and their livelihood. The plans to rebuild their homes were approved long ago. All possible means must be taken to complete them and end the ordeal of the homeless victims.

Source: Tempo.com