City giving P1M aid to storm-hit areas

CEBU, Philippines - The Cebu City Government will be giving one million pesos in financial assistance to Compostela Valley and other places in Region 11 greatly affected by typhoon Pablo.

Cebu City Mayor Michael Rama approved the P1M recommended amount by the Local Disaster Risk Reduction Management Council yesterday.

The approval is with reference to the provisions in Section 21 of Republic Act 10121 that allows the city to extend financial assistance to each of the disaster affected local government units if their area has been declared under state of calamity.

Aside from the Compostela Valley Province, the municipalities of New Bataan, Compostela, Boston, Cateel and Baganga, were also worst hit by the typhoon which destroyed most of the residential houses and severely damaged most infrastructures there.

LDRRMC operations officer Alvin Santillana went to the affected areas last Saturday and submitted the recommendation to Rama based on actual site assessment and data gathered from the Office of Civil Defense in Region 11.

Number of families affected by Pablo in CV rises

Families who stayed in designated evacuation centers in Central Visayas during the typhoon have gone home already, but the number of affected individuals has continued to rise.

This was according to the recent update of the Department of Social Welfare and Development-7 which has been closely monitoring and helping other government agencies and local government units provide for the needs of the affected families.

As of DSWD’s update yesterday, the number of families affected by typhoon Pablo increased to 15,278 from 2,657 families.

DSWD-7 social welfare officer Rosa Vida Diva said that of the 145 evacuation centers set up to accept evacuees only three remain.

She also said that the headcount for those affected by the typhoon has reached to 73,308 of which 13,398 individuals comprising 2,804 families are from Cebu.  All the three evacuation centers still housing families are also in Cebu.  Total damage to houses in Cebu has reached 214 while houses partially damaged were at 1,223.

Last week, the Provincial Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Office showed that the municipalities of Boljoon, Santander and Oslob had the most number of families affected and the most number of houses and infrastructures damaged.

But in Region 7, Negros Oriental reported the most number of families affected at 7,314 with 34,854 persons distressed. Totally damaged houses in the area was recorded at 360 with 1,595 houses partially damaged.

Siquijor, which has been placed by its local government earlier a under state of calamity, also reported 3,612 families or 18,060 persons affected while the province of Bohol has 1,548 families or 6,996 persons affected.  Both Siquijor and Bohol have also reported 239 totally damaged houses and 3,373 partially damaged as well as 10 totally houses with 80 partially damaged, respectively.

Diva said that the DSWD-7 have already extended relief goods worth P1,360,670 to the whole Central Visayas of which P800,000 was released to Negros Oriental.

She said that they expect the numbers in the region to continually increase as LGUs continue to monitor their respective areas and submit reports to their office for support including in Cebu where they anticipate more support is needed, especially in the southern most areas where typhoon Pablo did most of the damage in the province.  —(FREEMAN)