INC extends housing assistance to Bicolano indigenous group
With Kabihug families in Camarines Norte lacking jobs and roofs over their heads, the Iglesia Ni Cristo (INC), through its social arm the Felix Y. Manalo (FYM) Foundation, launched in early November a housing and livelihood project for Kabihug families in Barangay Bakal, Paracale, Camarines Norte.
The Kabihugs are an indigenous group belonging to the Negrito race. Based in the highlands of Bicol province, the group’s members have often been victims of oppression and discrimination because of their ethnicity.
According to INC general auditor Brother Glicerio Santos, “the members of the Iglesia Ni Cristo know what it feels like to be oppressed, so when Executive Minister Brother Eduardo V. Manalo learned that our brother Kabihugs were suffering from discrimination, he immediately decreed that we extend assistance to them.”
The newly opened INC community project stands on a 100-hectare land atop the slopes of Paracale. It contains 300 housing units to serve as permanent shelters for Kabihug families and also consists of livelihood facilities such as a 20-hectare calamansi orchard, an eco-farm, and a 300-square-meter fish-drying plant.
The FYM Foundation also built a garment factory and a learning center that will initially offer kindergarten and grade 1 elementary courses to Kabihug children.
INC Executive Minister Brother Eduardo V. Manalo led the inauguration, which also coincided with the first worship service of the INC local congregation of Bakal and the dedication of its new house of worship, which crowns the whole community.
“The Executive Minister gave the Kabihug brethren various means of livelihood,” said Santos.
“Aside from these, he also welcomed them into our Church, and organized them into a new local congregation and ordered the constriction of a 370-seater chapel where they can worship together.”
In his homily during the chapel dedication, Brother Eduardo Manalo emphasized that while addressing poverty and other such problems is necessary, far more important is for people to be able to exercise their right to render true worship to God in order to receive His blessings.