40,000 more Central Luzon families want to be resettled

CLARK FIELD, Pampanga — The number of Mt. Pinatubo-displaced families has ballooned by 40,000 more after President Arroyo declared two years ago that they were entitled to free house-and-lot packages in resettlement sites in Central Luzon.

Flor Arrozal, executive director of the Mt. Pinatubo Project Management Office (MPPMO), said 40,000 more families want to move into resettlement sites where 49,611 other families have found permanent homes.

Those earlier resettled were in the priority list because their houses were totally destroyed when Mt. Pinatubo erupted in 1991.

The remaining 40,000 belong to the second or lower priority lists. They include families living in apartments which were washed away by lahar flows.

Because of the work still left undone by the MPPMO, Vice President Noli de Castro, who chairs the Housing and Urban Development Coordinating Council (HUDCC), said the agency’s term, which lapsed last December, has been extended.

"It’s not only because we don’t want people to lose their jobs, but the MPPMO has so many unfinished tasks which local government units hosting the resettlement sites may not be willing to assume," he said.

De Castro said Malacañang has prepared an executive order extending the term of the MPPMO which is under the HUDCC.

Aside from resettling the 40,000 families, the MPPMO still has to process certificates of land titles for those now staying in 16 resettlement sites across Central Luzon.

Of the 46,611 families earlier resettled, only 8,124 have received titles to their properties.