New GK community to rise in Balanga City

BALANGA CITY – The Gawad Kalinga Community Development Foundation will start the construction of housing units in the upland sitio of Bane in Barangay Cataning here, which is scheduled for occupancy early next year by some 150 indigent families.

Angel Pizarro, Gawad Kalinga project director and a prominent business executive in Bataan, told The STAR before the groundbreaking ceremony of the foundation’s new housing community last Friday that 120 to 150 houses have been planned to be built on the three-hectare land donated by Dr. Victor Abello and Grace Abello Consunji.

The site, about five kilometers away from the city proper, is a progressive agricultural community, facing the historic Mt. Samat in Pilar town, signifying that Gawad Kalinga is not just a work of charity but a mission to build the nation.

Pizarro said Dr. Fortunato Abello, a Balanga City resident based in San Antonio, Texas, has earmarked P2.5 million for the construction of 30 housing units in the GK Kanlungan ng Pag-asa project.

Bataan Gov. Enrique Garcia Jr. and his son, Balanga City Mayor Jose Enrique Garcia III, and other officials boarded a wagon pulled by a tractor then traveled on a muddy, circuitous road to reach the site.

The younger Garcia promised to allocate some budget for the cementing of the 300-meter road that connects the main barangay road to the GK community so that occupants will not have to use the dangerous trail anymore.

He lauded the GK for leading a movement that envisions building 700,000 homes in 7,000 communities in seven years up to October 2010. GK villages have been built in Limay, Orion, Abucay and Orani towns in Bataan in the past five years.

The beneficiaries will undergo a three-month seminar on “membership training and values formation” for them to identify their common concerns and discuss among themselves the possible solutions to these problems.

The Couples for Christ-Gawad Kalinga Caretaker team will administer the values formation seminar.

Mayor Garcia said the project would at least minimize the number of informal dwellers living under bridges and along creeks.