U.S. Ambassador to the Philippines Philip S. Goldberg visited Guiuan, Eastern Samar on October 20 to break ground on a PhP9.5 billion (US $214 million) U.S.-funded road rehabilitation project. “New and improved roadways not only aid the recovery efforts after Typhoon Yolanda, but they promote long-term economic growth. The United States government is proud to support such projects,” said Ambassador Goldberg. Ambassador Goldberg led the official groundbreaking ceremony for the 77.51-kilometer roadway running from Llorente to Guiuan. The road is part of the Secondary National Roads Development Project (SNRDP) funded by the U.S. government’s Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) and implemented through the Millennium Challenge Account-Philippines. The PhP $19.4 billion (USD $434 million) MCC grant to the Philippines supports three poverty-reduction projects including a road project, a community-driven development project and a tax-revenue generation and anti-corruption project. SNRDP traverses 14 municipalities and one city, from Paranas, Samar to Guiuan, Eastern Samar. As of October 2014, about 42% of the physical road works for the SNRDP projects were completed, including its first contract which rehabilitated 16 kilometers in the municipality of Paranas. The rehabilitation works in Guiuan are estimated to be completed by April 2016. “As we did last November, the United States stands with the Philippines in the resolve to re-build,” said Ambassador Goldberg. “Upon completion of these projects, we hope to improve the lives of Filipinos and promote sustainable, broad-based growth.” (PR)

TACLOBAN CITY- Even the youth could help curb problem on climate change. This was the message imparted by popular actor Dingdong Dantes, who is a commissioner of the National Youth Commission.
Dantes joined a climate change walk in Catbalogan City last November 3 with thousands of students joining him. “Even the youth, on their own way, can help address our problem on climate change. That is why, the National Youth Commission is supportive of this climate change walk,” the actor said. As a commissioner of the NYC, Dantes said that he has been joining several activities related to campaign against climate change. The actor said that he is also encouraging the youth of the country to observe and practice the 50 ways to cut green gas emissions. The emissions of green gas are being attributed as a big factor for climate change or global warming. He said that simple act of waste segregation and planting trees “at the right place,” would help the campaign against climate change. Meantime, Dantes dismissed reports that he is gunning for a senate seat in the 2016 polls. “I don’t have any (political) plans. I am happy and contended with my current role,” he said. He, however, said that his being an actor will help him encouraged more youth to become environment conscious and promote better understanding of having a good and healthy environment. Dantes said that he is upbeat that the youth are also aware on what is happening to our environment and how to lessen the impact of the ever changing condition of our environment. (JOEY A. GABIETA)

PALO, Leyte – The New Government Center, to be undertaken by a private company, is set to start the work January next year at a cost of P4 billion. The envisioned New Government Center, dubbed as “The Octagon,” will sit at the nine-hectare property at Barangay Candahug, this town. The project will be undertaken by Malaysia-based MTD Malaysia through its local office in the country. “Currently, we are doing a market survey both from the government and private sector. We are optimistic that there will be locators because of ongoing economic developments here,” said Grace Pesca, AlloyMTD Philippines head of contracts and procurements.

The firm plans to have its groundbreaking on January 2015 and will be completed within two years. AlloyMTD will manage the project for 30 years under the built operate transfer (BOT) scheme. Based on the plan, the project will consist of three 8-storey buildings for government offices with a total floor area of 11,688 square meters (sqm); 6-storey business process outsourcing (BPO) with 11,500 seats; 5-storey hotel (7,302 sqm); 4-storey private sector office (5,844 sqm); and a three-storey hospital (4,833 sqm).

Eight buildings with a total floor area of three hectares will be constructed designed to withstand up to 320 kilometers per hour wind velocity and intensity 8 earthquakes, according to Pesca. In addition, the provincial capitol building will also be located at the proposed new government center together with a hospital and an evacuation center that can house residents within the area. The provincial government under Governor Leopoldo Dominico Petilla is seeking a P1.5 billion budget to transfer its capitol building from Tacloban to Palo, some 12 kilometers away from the regional capital. The property, which is the firm’s most expensive government center project in the country, will rise eight meters above sea level and structures will be built to protect the complex from storm surges. “The Octagon will symbolize their resilience to inspire a new beginning for its people. Thus, this facility, consisting of 8 octagonal buildings forming an 8-sided complex, will surely rekindle their hope for a brighter future,” Pesca said.

Gov.Petilla, chairman of the Regional Development Council, said the AlloyMTD project will encourage more BPO companies to invest in the province. “There are many interested BPO firms, but we have no infrastructure to accommodate them. No wonder many BPO workers in Manila and Cebu are from Leyte,” Petilla said. Patterned after Putrajaya, the federal administrative center of Malaysia, AlloyMTD envisions to replicate one-stop-shop government centers all over the Philippines. Its first project in the country is the P2.5 billion regional government center in Calamba, Laguna, which is has been ready for occupancy since September. Other projects on the pipeline are government centers in Nueva Ecija, Camarines Sur, Maguindanao, Ilocos Sur, and Bataan. These five project with a total cost of P10 billion is up for completion on June 2016. Malaysia-based property developer AlloyMTD is the merger between MTD and Alloy. The firm operates in the Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, United States, United Kingdom, Australia, Indonesia, Singapore, Sri Lanka, India, Thailand, Philippines, Chile and China. (SARWELL Q. MENIANO)

MANILA- Secretary Panfilo “Ping” Lacson of the OPARR (Office of the Presidential Assistant for Rehabilitation and Recovery) has directed the regional office of the Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) to expedite the appeal of farmers for the release of their certificate of land ownership awards (CLOAs). Lacson made the order during a meeting at his office with farmers coming from the towns of Alangalang, Barugo and San Miguel, all in Leyte, at his office in Makati City on October 28. Also present were DAR Regional Director Shiela Enciso and representatives from the Rights Network, a nongovernment organization that is helping the farmers obtained their CLOAS. The farmers, all survivors of supertyphoon Yolanda, are asking CLOAS from the DAR on the ground that aside as a proof of land ownership, that they could not receive housing assistance from various humanitarian groups without the said document.

Enciso, during the meeting, vowed to finish the inventory of the CLOAs stored at the regional office of the Registry of Deeds before the end of the month. The process is necessary for them to really determine who are entitled to receive the CLOAS. After the inventory, the DAR regional chief said, they would also start to determine if the areas identified involved timber lands. The identification process would be finished by next month, Enciso said. “We need deadlines to determine timelines,” Lacson said.

Close to 17,000 farmers from the three Leyte towns are projected to receive CLOAs, Rights Network said. “Rehabilitation efforts for Region VIII farmers seemed to have been blocked by the “dead” CLOAs. The survivors of the super typhoon, mostly from the farming and fishing communities, are still unable to avail of the support services and other programs from government agencies, international and local organizations working in the Region that are needed for survivors’ long term rehabilitation,” it said. Violeta Alberca said that she feel bad that close to a year now, they could not move on with the disaster as they don’t have a home to shield them from the environments. “We are also victims of Yolanda. But because we don’t have a CLOA, various humanitarian groups offering housing projects excludes us,” Alberca, 53 of Barangay Busay, Barugo. Alberca’s house was destroyed during the onslaught of Yolanda. According to her, the CLOA is a “vital document” for her to be given a house provided by various humanitarian groups because it grants them, the beneficiaries, of a house lot of at least 10×20 square meters. (JOEY A. GABIETA)

TACLOBAN CITY— Government rehabilitation works in areas hit by supertyphoon Yolanda close to a year now is “slow,” despite of reported billions of dollars it received from various countries and organizations.
This was the assessment made by IBON Foundation, a leading think-tank group adding that the government failed to deliver in its rehabilitation efforts in areas devastated by the deadly storm. “Government efforts for the recovery of the affected areas are moving very slowly; the slow recovery efforts are on top of earlier criticisms of poor emergency response and relief work last year despite considerable resources already at hand from international, national, and local sources,” the think-tank group said. “Millions of victims who were already in very poor and vulnerable conditions even before the typhoon Yolanda continue to endure barely survival conditions,” it added. “Approaching typhoon Yolanda’s first anniversary, real community development escapes them and they face a future of being put in a ‘new normal’ of an even lower level of existence than they had before,” IBON reported.

The group, citing reports from the Office of the Presidential Assistant for Rehabilitation and Recovery (OPARR), said the government “tend to show that Yolanda victims are still in the relief phase and barely starting to recover almost a year after the typhoon struck.” “The largest number of Yolanda victims remains in uncertain and unstable conditions with abnormal and uncertain livelihoods. Although 1.5 million families were affected, only 215,471 families are reported to have benefited from Cash for Building Livelihood Assets projects,” it said. The foundation also said that victims remain largely in temporary and transitional shelters. Some 1.2 million houses were damaged or destroyed, of which some 500,000 were completely destroyed. The OPARR however only reports 364 housing units completed in Tacloban and Tanauan, Leyte. It also said that only 44,870 fishermen were provided with fishing gears; another 32,081 were able to have new bancas or were just repaired and only 4,507 seaweed farmers were assisted by the government. In the agriculture sector, only 9,149 farmers were provided farm implements and another 2,482 farmers given seeds and 160 farmers helped with animal restocking. Just 27 public markets out of the target 132 have been repaired or rehabilitated and only 58 kilometers of farm-to-market roads out of the target 315 kilometers have been rehabilitated or constructed, the think-tank said.

On education, IBON, citing OPARR, said that “children are still unable to return to school buildings and classrooms.” “ Some 6.9 million textbooks, learning materials and learning kits and 517 computer packages are being distributed. Yet only 213 classrooms have been repaired out of the target 19,648 classrooms. Only 13 health facilities have been rehabilitated. Meanwhile some 18 doctors, 668 nurses and 233 midwives have been deployed in Regions VII and VIII, the report said. IBON also noted that its efforts to rebuild infrastructures “are also moving slowly.”

“ Only 5.8 kilometers of national roads have been repaired or rehabilitated out of a target 116 kilometers, three bridges out of a target 34 bridges, six ports out of a target 43 port facilities, 33 out of 99 flood control facilities, 25 municipal halls out of a target 153 municipal, city and provincial halls, and 21 out of 161 civic centers,” IBON said in its report published online. For the marginalized survivors in Tacloban City battered by Yolanda, they said that help from the government continue to elude them. “The urban poor in Tacloban are being exiled to distant relocation sites and forced to live in substandard housing. They are also uprooted from their means of livelihood, because many are fishermen and vendors whose sources of income are near the coastal communities,” said Joel Abaño, spokesman of urban peasant group Kadamay.
Abaño, in a statement, criticized the government’s Recovery Assistance on Yolanda (RAY) which “essentially displaced them in favor of corporate interests.” RAY is pushing such anti-poor policies like the “no build zones” and “no dwelling zones” to get rid of the urban poor in Tacloban, added Abaño. “The Aquino government hypocritically imposed the ‘no build zones’ and ‘no dwelling zones’ in the name of safety for the affected communities, while encouraging corporations to take advantage of the vacated locations to build their businesses,” Abaño said. (RONALD O. REYES)