Philippine society really proves that politics is the main ingredient in its progress that sans the blessings of the powers that be development would be more challenging to come by. This is what comes up now in Tanauan, one of the municipalities in Leyte hardly hit by supertyphoon Yolanda on November 8, 2013. From being metaphorically planed by the monstrous storm, this quaint town located about twenty kilometres south of Tacloban, is fast recovering with an identity as “build back better” affected town in Leyte.
Tanauan Mayor Pel Tecson’s 9-minuter Tanauan Rehabilitation Plan report is a concrete manifestation of how public-private partnership could build back a community momentarily laid back by a typhoon worst ever to hit the globe in recent scores. Underlining the cooperation among the government, private sector and the citizens involved in the undertaking for the build-back-better efforts, the municipal government of Tanauan has all the reasons to arise and make progress take place sooner than in other localities not well blessed. The people of Tanauan is truly blessed.
In his discourse, Tecson underscored the realization of a promise of national government’s help assured him by Pres. Noynoy Aquino when he met the latter at the destroyed DZR Airport few days after the Yolanda onslaught. He declared during the simple program held at the Tanauan public plaza on February 25 that since the moment of PNoy’s verbal pledge help kept coming in.
Enumerating them, Tanauan’s dad emphasized the aids came in few days after the disaster. The locality received assistance by way of relief goods, medicines, security augmentation, temporary shelters and classrooms, restoration of power lines in the main streets as early as week two, construction materials like GI sheets for damaged houses within the build zone.
On the occasion of the 28th anniversary of the EDSA Revolution, PNoy inspected the permanent relocation site in Brgy. Pago in Tanauan, Leyte where 366 units will be erected. Another permanent relocation site is in Brgy. Maribi where 456 emergency housing residences will be built jointly through the efforts of the national government through the National Housing Authority, the Dept. Public Works and Highways, the Gawad Kalinga and the Tanauan government. Shelter along with livelihood and infrastructure are the focus of the LGU’s build-back-better endeavors according to the new mayor of Tanauan, who nevertheless is not a neophyte in politics.
To prove this pro-active stance of the LGU in keeping with the build-back better program of the Aquino government for the affected towns and cities, the local government’s rehabilitation and reconstruction plan, which as aforementioned focused on shelter, livelihood and infrastructure, is the blueprint that propels the town’s fast rising from the Yolanda devastating effect. “Since the start our bias has always been on how to fasttrack on building permanent housing and relocation site on displaced families in the no-build zone,” he declared in a program attended by a huge crowd of Tanauanons.
Another proof of the Tanauan government’s positive outlook is the rehabilitation of the town’s public plaza through the auspices of Double Dragon Properties Corp represented by its president and chief operating officer Ferdinand Sia. The soon-to-be-rehabilitated plaza, which partly was used as mass grave for more than 900 victims of sty Yolanda, will have a memorial in honor of the Tanauanons who perished in the Yolanda onslaught and of the war veterans. Soon, the same company, which still owns 30% of Mang Inasal chain of food store (70% belonging to the Jollibee Corporation), will help the local government construct a modern public market. Sia further disclosed in an interview with news men at the Tanauan Municipal Hall that company mulls on putting up a city mall in Tanauan in the coming years.
It is noteworthy that the cooperation was forged through the initiative of Dept. of Interior and Local Government Sec. Mar Roxas, who introduced Double Dragon’s big boss who is more popular by the nickname Injap to Mayor Tecson. Double Dragon at that time was eagerly locating a locality to help in its rehabilitation attempts after the Yolanda tragedy. Tecson, who is optimistic about the rehabilitation assistance that the company was offering, warmly accepted Double Dragon’s offer.
Sooner than we could imagine, Tanauan will be economic hub in Leyte, being at par to its adjacent town Palo, which is being talked of widely as the next economic center in the province and next city to rise. Nothing is impossible truly in Philippine political setting with the blessing of the country’s president, who now is PNoy.
