‘Building safe zones more cost-efficient than typhoon-resistant houses’

MANILA, Philippines - It would be more cost-efficient for the government to focus on building “safe zones” instead of rebuilding individual typhoon-resistant houses in high-risk areas to maximize the use of scarce public funds, a group of architects said yesterday.

“The government should focus on refuge centers so people will have a place to go during disasters,” said Jose Pedro Recio of the United Architects in the Philippines (UAP).

Recio said the government should focus on building safe “places of refuge” such as churches, schools and gymnasiums instead of rebuilding individual typhoon-resistant houses in high-risk areas.

He said the order of President Aquino is to build 20- to 24-square meter houses that could withstand storms with maximum sustained winds of 275 to 370 kilometers per hour and Intensity 8 earthquake, adding each house will have a budget of P200,000.

Spending for all the destroyed houses would be much more expensive than strengthening existing public structures or building new multipurpose centers that can be converted into evacuation centers, Recio pointed.

Recio and his group, however, did not say exactly how much would be saved if the government focused on constructing disaster-resilient evacuation centers instead of rebuilding typhoon-resistant homes.

UAP president Sonny Rosal told a forum that they are assisting the local government units affected by Super Typhoon Yolanda last year, including Roxas City, Coron, Palawan and Northern Cebu in building disaster-resilient multipurpose centers, which can be used as evacuation centers during natural disasters.

He said emergency architects from France helped the citizens in Roxas City rebuild some of the damaged schools and houses.

The group said families, particularly those living in hazard-prone areas, would still seek refuge in evacuation centers when their houses are damaged by disasters.

They also pushed for stricter implementation of the land use plan to ensure that people will not build houses in hazard-prone areas.

“The areas deemed safe become unsafe because of illegal logging, we should update our land use plan,” Recio said.

An official of the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH), however, said the continuous rains over the region are hampering the ongoing construction of bunkhouses intended for victims of Typhoon Yolanda. – With Evelyn Macairan