Pinatubo project office has new lease in life

CLARK FIELD, Pampanga — It’s a merry Christmas for some 135 employees of the Pinatubo Project Management Office (PPMO), which replaced the controversial and now defunct Mt. Pinatubo Commission (MPC).

It’s good news, too, for some 54,000 families at 16 resettlement sites for Mt. Pinatubo victims in Central Luzon who got their houses and lots for free from President Arroyo.

Flordeliza Arrozal, PPMO deputy executive director, said yesterday that Housing and Urban Development Coordinating Council (HUDCC) chairman Mike Defensor has advised PPMO employees to continue reporting to work even after Dec. 31, when the agency is supposed to fold up.

The PPMO was transferred from the Department of Budget and Management (DBM) to the HUDCC some two years ago, following the MPC’s abolition during the Estrada administration.

Most of the 16 resettlement sites have remained under the administrative jurisdiction of the PPMO since some local governments hosting them have declined to take over due to lack of funds.

"There remains so much work such as the recovery of some 18,000 housing units which were illegally occupied by non-victims of Mt. Pinatubo," Arrozal said.

She said the titling of the beneficiaries’ homelots will still take some time, while thousands more of Mt. Pinatubo victims still have to be resettled.

"We had about 9,000 new claimants, although we found out that only about half of them were qualified beneficiaries. The rest were former beneficiaries who sold their housing units and are now again applying for housing, or are recently married children of Pinatubo victims who just want houses of their own," she said.

Arrozal said her office has allowed non-Pinatubo victims, who have bought purported "rights" to housing units at the resettlement sites from valid beneficiaries before October 2000, to own the properties by paying the cost of construction and the market value of the lots.

"The amount we can raise from this will be used for the construction of more housing units for the families still awaiting resettlement," she said.

While there is a dearth of funds to construct more houses, Arrozal said at least 500 more families can be accommodated at the San Isidro resettlement in Magalang, Pampanga.

"We still have about seven hectares available at the O’Donnel resettlement in Capas, Tarlac, but there are no takers from the remaining unresettled victims who are mostly from Pampanga and want to be resettled in their own province," she said.

Arrozal could not say until when the PPMO would operate. But she expressed confidence that it would remain for a while and would be given some administrative and operational funds by the DBM to finish its remaining tasks. — Ding Cervantes