60 familiesin Alegria to get free houses

CEBU, Philippines — About 60 families from the town of Alegria in southern Cebu are expected to benefit from the housing project funded by the Philippine Red Cross (PRC).

PRC Cebu Chapter Administrator, Atty. Maria Vera de Jesus, informed Governor Gwendolyn Garcia of their plan to implement a housing program to residents of Alegria who are mostly victims of the typhoon Odette in 2021.

Alegria Mayor Gilberto Magallon has already identified the relocation site for the housing project.

“The municipality will purchase the lot while PRC will fund the construction. As a counterpart, PRC will ask beneficiaries to help in the construction of their new homes,” according to the Capitol Information Office.

With this, the governor suggested to the PRC that those beneficiaries who will take part of the construction will be compensated or given a wage since the time for the construction works would also mean they cannot be able to do their livelihood.

Organizing the beneficiaries into a homeowners group would also be good according to the Governor.

Another suggestion Garcia lobbied to PRC is to help the beneficiaries in the transition of their livelihood since most of the beneficiaries are fishermen and the relocation site is considerably far from the sea. This means there will be adjustments in the livelihood.

Garcia said the local government unit can help the PRC to find another livelihood for the beneficiaries aside from fishing like producing other agricultural products.

De Jesus was thankful of the inputs given by the Governor noting these ideas for the materialization of their project in Alegria. — GMR (FREEMAN)