Zambo evacuees hit by floods to get bunkhouses

ZAMBOANGA CITY , Philippines  â€“ The Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) and the local crisis management committee (CMC) yesterday vowed to fast-track the construction of bunkhouses for the thousands of evacuees exposed to heavy rains in the past few days.

Social Welfare Secretary Corazon Soliman called for the construction of bunkhouses after seeing the miserable conditions of evacuees trying to sleep in their makeshift tents amid the floods.

Local officials noted the difficult conditions at the Joaquin F. Enriquez Sports Complex here where the homeless try to get some sleep under flooded tents.

“Our rehabilitation phase is ongoing but we have to attend to this emerging incident because our evacuees were flooded because of the rains,” Soliman said following a meeting with Mayor Isabelle Climaco-Salazar to discuss the plight of the evacuees.

Some of the evacuees from the stadium have to be relocated to National High School West, particularly the women and children.

Some of the male evacuees preferred to stay in the flooded tents to watch their personal belongings.

Conrad Navidad, emergency response coordinator of the International Organization for Migration (IOM) presented the scale model of the bunker shelter that will be built by the engineering brigade of the Armed Forces of the Philippines inside the stadium.

Soliman said there are currently 5,530 families staying in the stadium since the fighting between government forces and gunmen of the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) broke out on Sept. 9.

Soliman estimated some P500,000 would be used for the initial construction of bunkers in a portion of the stadium.

Navidad, on the other hand, said each bunker including kitchen facilities could cost around P250,000.

Soliman also assured Zamboanga City officials that the DSWD would help in the rehabilitation and repair of the stadium once the evacuees are relocated.

The gun battles between government forces and the MNLF for three weeks forced about 130,000 residents – more than 10 percent of the population of Zamboanga City – to flee their homes to emergency shelters.

Most of the evacuees came from six villages occupied by the rebels during the three-week siege.

They have no homes to return to since the rebels burned them to the ground in an effort to confuse government forces.

Soliman said they are currently dealing with more than 118,000 evacuees. She said United Nations – Philippines chairperson Luisa Carvajo and her team also joined in assessing the situation to see what assistance the UN could provide.

“We’re dealing with a big number of evacuees, we estimate it would run for nine months,” Soliman said.

Due to the flooding, Soliman said they shifted back to providing the evacuees with food packs.

On Saturday, Soliman, Salazar and the Habitat for Humanity led the ground breaking for the relocation site of the evacuees at Barangay Taluksangay, a coastal village east of this city.

Black Eyed Peas’ Apl.de.ap made a courtesy call to Salazar and vowed to construct a school building in a village destroyed during the fighting.

Through his foundation peace building with Red Ribbon’s Macaroons for a cause and Franklyn Baker, Apl.de.ap will be constructing a 14-classroom school building at Barangay Talon-Talon.

Aside from the 14-classroom school building, the foundation will also build six more, three in Zamboanga Sibugay and another three in Zamboanga del Norte, according to Eileen Aparis, executive director of the Apl.de.ap Foundation.

Aparis said about $600,000 will be earmarked for the building of all classrooms in this city and the two other sites. – With Rainier Allan Ronda