Mayor slams housing delay for quake victims

CATIGBIAN, BOHOL, Philippines — Mayor Virgilio Lurot of this town had expressed displeasure over the long-delayed implementation of post-earthquake housing assistance for his constituent-victims of the magnitude-7.2 earthquake that devastated his town last year.

Lurot, without naming the agency or group that supposedly caused the delay, said he and his officials are now being assailed by their constituents for the laggard housing assistance. Some of them are angry already, he said although he could not blame them because of their frustration to have core shelters of their own.

According to a municipal employee (name withheld), the Habitat for Humanity Foundation promised to start building core shelters for the quake victims but none has been started so far.

Habitat is the implementer of the core shelter construction province-wide in coordination with the Department of Social Welfare and Development, which is supposed to provide funds amounting to P70,000 with Habitat's counterpart of P18,000, including cost of labor.

This town had a total of 5,216 'quake-affected houses, and 4,241 of these have already been assisted by the National Housing Administration, according to the Municipal Social Welfare and Development Office.

A total of 101 are classified as "totally damaged" and 1,850 "partially damaged." The DSWD has assisted at least 1,951 "households," said the MSWDO, which already submitted the final list of beneficiaries of the program.

Lurot told The Freeman his town's share of the Bohol Earthquake Assistance Fund is P131.25 million, the P65 million of which is for the rehabilitation of the destroyed municipal hall. Other allocations are P24.86 million for barangay facilities and P22.42 million for water system rehabilitation, to mention a few. — Ric V. Obedencio (FREEMAN)