EU: Poor hardest hit by floods in Mindanao

CAGAYAN DE ORO, Philippines – The poor that were severely affected by the flashfloods spawned by tropical storm “Sendong” here and in Iligan City and who could not leave their homes and settle in safer areas represent 80 percent of the displaced families, now totaling 641,000 people.

European Union Ambassador Guy Ledoux yesterday said the figure given by the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council (NDRRMC) and United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCA) highlighted the poverty level of the residents that have been affected by the floods.

He stressed the need to reduce the high casualty count by addressing the issue of poverty whenever disasters and calamities strike the Philippines.

“The Philippine government is well aware of this and is implementing various policies to promote economic growth and reduce poverty,” Ledoux said.

The EU, for its part, is also contributing to the poverty reduction effort, he said.

Last year, the EU disbursed funds in numerous development aid programs aimed at reducing poverty.

The EU, through its non-government organization partners, has mobilized many relief workers on the ground to provide immediate emergency assistance to 170,000 displaced families.

But beyond relief assistance, Ledoux said, is the continuing need to strengthen disaster preparedness mechanisms in the area. Although the EU has invested significantly in disaster preparedness in the Philippines in the last few years, Ledoux said more needs to be done.

“Disaster preparedness has to be made part of community life by the community for the community,” he added.

Thousands of families affected by the storm are also helped by the Philippine Red Cross (PRC) to rebuild their homes.

A seven-hectare land in Barangay Lumbia here, which was donated by Xavier University, will be subdivided among some 1,400 families whose houses were devastated by the flashfloods.

PRC chairman Richard Gordon said they would provide construction materials for the affected families to rebuild their homes.

A housing unit, costing from P72,000 to P80,000, will sit on a 50-square meter lot and can accommodate a family of five.

Gordon said basic needs such as water and electricity will also be provided by the PRC.

“Construction of houses will start in two weeks’ time,” Gordon said.

He said Xavier University would select the families who will qualify to settle in the land.

Gordon said only those families most vulnerable and who are really poor will be given priority.

Aside from the houses, each family will also receive a certain amount to start a livelihood.

Although the house and lot will be given to the evacuees for free, Gordon said the recipient-families would give their counterpart through “sweat equity,” where they have to construct the houses themselves.

In addition, the families will have food on the table through the “food for work” program.

On the other hand, evacuees and pupils competed for space as schools opened the other day, with both wanting to use the buildings following the Christmas break.

In some cases, survivors of last month’s floods were moved to alternative shelters as children returned to schoolhouses that had been used as evacuation centers.

But in other instances, hundreds of the evacuees refused to leave, forcing school officials to find novel ways of conducting classes.

In one school here, it was the students who had to move to tents because the storm victims refused to vacate their classrooms, according to district school official Shirley Merida.

“We will have to hold these sessions inside the tents since all of our classrooms still have evacuees living in them. We cannot just drive them away,” she said.

Merida, who is in charge of five schools in the city, said the situation was worse in other locations.

“I still do not know how to open two schools since these are still full of waist-deep mud,” she said.

Sendong caused flashfloods and overflowing rivers from Dec. 16 to 18 that killed almost 1,260 people and displaced more than 429,000, with nearly 37,300 still in makeshift evacuation centers.

The government, international and local charities have been working to provide new shelters for the displaced but it will take months before permanent shelters are finished.

Thousands of people can no longer return home as the government has said the sites of their old communities were too vulnerable to flooding. - With Jigger Jerusalem, Helen Flores, Reinir Padua