‘Yolanda’-hit Leyte town gets housing project

TANAUAN, Leyte -- An additional 564 housing units will soon rise in this town, which was heavily devastated by Super Typhoon Yolanda six years ago.

The PHP200-million resettlement project is tagged by the National Housing Authority (NHA) as the “New Yolanda Project” due to its upgraded standard design.

The houses will be built near the relocation site in Maribi village, expanding and developing the resettlement area. This is on top of the other completed housing projects in Sacme and Pago villages.

Marcelino Escalada Jr., NHA general manager, said on Friday that each row house will have one bedroom, granite floor, and an area of 27 square meters.

This is wider than the existing relocation units with only a 22-square-meter floor area. The new unit has an upgraded kitchen, toilet, and bathroom.

“There are exactly 347 relocation sites all over ‘Yolanda’-hit areas, and we could say the recovery projects and developments in this town is the highlight,” Escalada said.

These houses will benefit not only the “Yolanda”-hit

families but also the informal settlers living in Tanauan.

Senator Christopher Lawrence “Bong” Go, Escalada, and top local officials led the ground-breaking ceremony of the project in Maribi village as part of the “Yolanda” commemoration.

Go said the housing project is free, as it is the goal of the Duterte administration to reduce the number of informal settlers in the country.

“I already filed the National Housing Development and Financing Act. Though it is too ambitious, we do not want to have squatters on our own land,” he said.

Go added that the NHA will have tight supervision on this project to properly use the fund up to the last centavo and avoid the use of substandard materials during construction.

Meanwhile, Mayor Pelagio Tecson thanked the central government for the fast approval of the project.

National officials are supportive of the town’s development projects as seen in the efficient implementation of housing projects here.

The town has identified more than 800 families living in high-risk coastal areas, who have been provided with proper relocation since 2014.

However, the mayor acknowledged that some families still refuse to transfer to relocation sites since it is far from the town center.

The town is one of the hard-hit areas during the monster typhoon.

Tanauan, a second-class town, located 18 km. north of Tacloban, has been tagged as a model of post-disaster recovery in the central Philippines for being the first to get back on its feet.

“Yolanda”, said to be the strongest typhoon in world history, struck the central Philippines and wreaked havoc on 175 cities and towns in 14 provinces in six regions. The disaster killed more than 6,000 people. (PNA)