CEBU, Philippines - Ten months after typhoon Yolanda devastated Eastern Visayas, a team of the Housing and Land Use Regulatory Board pledged for the completion of permanent shelters to the victims in Tacloban City.
The team, headed by Ria Golez Cabrera, HLURB supervising commissioner for the Visayas regions went to Barangay Bagacay in Tacloban where 492 beneficiaries of the Brigham Estate Homeowners Association’s typhoon Yolanda community mortgage program were located.
Other members of the team were Alexis Roy Lopez, regional director of HLURB, Engineer Francis Ordeniza, head of the registration, planning and licensing; Engr. Ernesto Tan, technical staff; lawyer Joe Vinson Empaces, homeowners association unit coordinator, Christine Kale Albaladejo, association cluster coordinator.
Part of the visit was the turnover of imported boxes of medicines to Siony Sia, president and chief executive officer of Mineland Shelter Incorporated and community organizer of Brigham. The medicines were donated by Eleanor Mooney and Friends in the USA for Yolanda survivors living at Brigham in Bagacay.
The team also visited Barangay Cabalawan in the northern part of the city to check on the ongoing construction of shelters, also for Yolanda victims.
Lopez told The Freeman that the team tapped the different homeowners associations in the area to ensure the implementation of the government’s resettlement program. “We visited the place to give technical assistance specifically the shelter design as a model community,” he said. Some 18,000 beneficiaries will be served by the housing program.
Lopez said HLURB has already organized and will regulate shelter programs for Yolanda victims. — (FREEMAN)