1,500 families remain homeless in Aurora

CITY OF SAN FERNANDO, Pampanga — Six months after the devastating flashfloods that hit Aurora province in November, some 1,500 families have no permanent homes yet due to lack of government lands for resettlement, Gov. Bellaflor Angara said.

Angara cited reports from experts from the Mines and Geosciences Bureau that of the five hectares initially reserved in Barangay Karagkasan in Dinggalan, only 1.5 hectares were found safe for resettlement.

A government land identified as possible resettlement in Barangay Tanauan earlier was also found unsafe, as it was said to be on top of an earthquake fault.

Of the 1,500 families who need permanent homes, 1,000 are in Dinggalan, Angara said.

The governor ordered that the 1,000 families, whose homes were totally destroyed by flashfloods, be relocated from public schools to other government buildings so as not to disrupt the opening of classes this June.

"Our problem is that most of the areas safe enough for relocation in Dinggalan are privately owned and it would cost us much to purchase them," Angara said.

She also lamented the lack of a "definitive" pronouncement from the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) on whether they could use the logs washed down from the mountains by last year’s flashfloods for the construction of housing units.

Most of the donations that were for the affected Aurora folk are in kind. "We really also need cash. We need at least P25,000 to construct a basic housing unit for the resettlement projects," she said.