TACLOBAN CITY – Survivors in coastal communities badly hit by supertyphoon “Yolanda” has welcomed President Rodrigo Duterte’s directive to move them to permanent homes as early as next month.
In the past two years, single mother Marilyn Singh, 51, and her children and grandchildren have been staying in a bunkhouse.
She commended the President for giving attention to them. “I agree with President Duterte. Why delay the housing projects if funds have already been available?” she asked.
Lucia Etolle, 61, shares a room with 10 other family members in the same bunkhouse made out of coconut lumber and plywood.
She lauded the President for being apologetic to the plight of survivors, who are compelled to stay in low lying coastal communities and makeshift houses.
“Suffering for nearly three years is too much. We really want to move to a new house with own toilet, stable water supply, and electricity,” said Etolle, who earns meager income from tailoring.
Weeks after Yolanda devastated the region, the government built bunkhouses for displaced families.
Each unit is divided into 24 rooms for each family. The room measures 8.64 square meters—roughly the size of two ping-pong tables.
The two mothers are among the 50 families still living in bunkhouses built in a government-owned lot in Barangay Kalipayan, this city.
These families are scheduled for transfer to housing projects in the northern part of the city funded by an international non-government organization.
In Brgy. San Roque, Tanauan, Leyte several families opted to stay in makeshift houses built near the shoreline even after the turnover of permanent housing units to them.
“Living here is more convenient. It’s closer to the sea where we earn about P300 daily from fishing. What’s the point of having a new home if we have nothing to eat?” asked Yiyi Quista, 44, a mother of five.
“With the President’s order, I am positive that concerned government agencies will address the livelihood aspect of relocation,” she added.
During the 3rd Yolanda anniversary on November 8, Duterte asked concern agencies to fast track the assistance to survivors, especially housing-related concerns.
“I am not satisfied. In three years only few families were transferred to their permanent houses. The national offices, the respective departments, they’re only given one month to process the paper and it must be out,” the President said.
Thousands of Yolanda survivors converged in town plazas and mass grave sites to celebrate resilience and remember those who perished when Yolanda the Visayas in 2013.
(SARWELL Q.MENIANO)

TACLOBAN CITY- “Keep the faith and hope that we will rise again,” so said Mayor Cristina G. Romualdez after the commemorative mass at the Tacloban City Convention Center, this city on Tuesday (Nov.8) coinciding with the 3rd anniversary of supertyphoon “Yolanda” attended by key national government officials and foreign dignitaries.
Attending the ceremony remembering the onslaught of Yolanda were former Tacloban mayor Alfred Romualdez, former senator Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos, Jr., Rep. Yedda Romualdez, ViceMayor Jerry Yaokasin, Raymund Romualdez and formercongressmen Ferdinand Martin Romualdez and Anton Lagdameo of the 2nd district of Davao del Norte.
Also joining the scores of Tacloban residents who attended the event were national officials and foreign dignitaries, namely Senator Cynthia Villar and Climate Change Commissioner Emmanuel de Guzman,US acting Ambassador to the Philippines, Michael Klecheski, Israeli Ambassador Effie Ben Matityau, Bangladesh Ambassador John Gomes and a representative of the Australian Embassy.
The commemorative mass was officiated by Naval Bishop Filomeno Bactol.
According to Mayor Romualdez, the city government is concentrating its efforts on transferring Yolanda–affected families living in transitional shelters to permanent homes.
Currently, the city government has helped move 2,500 families from temporary shelters to their permanent homes at the National Housing Resettlement Project situated at North of Tacloban. Still lacking potable water amenities, the city government conducts daily rationing of water to the transferred families.
The new township is where the city government plans to transfer some 10,000 to 15,000 families living in identified danger zones in the next two years.
Tacloban North has been identified in hazard maps by the different DOST agencies as some of the safest areas in the City.
Three years after Yolanda, tourism in the city is vibrant according to Mayor Cristina; from 40 hotels before Yolanda, Tacloban now has 63.
Speaking at the commemorative program, she thanked the various international non-government organizations which contributed to the rehabilitation of Tacloban and encouraged Taclobanons to pin hopes on the City now heeding the lessons of Yolanda.
Rep. Romualdez, on the other hand, said she re-filed in the House of Representatives a proposed law authored by former senator Marcos which seeks to create a national agency that will oversee government emergency and rehabilitation efforts during a disaster.
Recalling what happened at the height of Yolanda three years ago, former Mayor Alfred Romualdez said the city government evacuated some 7,000 residents to the Astrodome which only has a total capacity of 3,500.
He also contradicted reports that the evacuation center had several casualties.
Former Mayor Romualdez and Senator Bongbong Marcos were presented with certificates of appreciation
Capping the commemorative program was the launching of the book“Legacies of Leadership Book II”, which compiled the personal narratives of Yolanda survivors. (HENRY JAMES ROCA/Tacloban City Information Office)

TACLOBAN CITY-A radio reporter, based this city, mentioned during a Senate inquiry on the killing of Albuera Mayor Rolando Espinosa Sr., said that he is willing to appear before the body and clear his name.
Eulogio Caorte, 50, who works at DyBr (Kaugop Radyo), said that he has nothing to hide or fear considering that he was in the area to cover the incident.
“I was part of the team, yes but I was not part of the operation. I was not even aware who was or were the subject or subjects of the operation except that a search warrants are to be served by the CIDG(Criminal Investigation and Detection Group),” he said during an interview.
The radio man stressed that he was not informed by the CIDG raiding team where they were going saying he knew if it was part of the police operations.
“I only learned about where we’re heading when the vehicles we were on board stopped to a familiar land mark which was the office of the DPWH in Baybay City,” he said.
The Leyte subprovincial jail in Baybay is located near the office of the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) located in Barangay Hiposngo, a kilometer away from the city center.
Caorte claimed that when the CIDG team, headed by Inspector Leo Laraga entered the facility, he was prohibited by Laraga to join the group to enter the building where the prison cells were located.
“I was inside the compound but not inside the building,” he said.
Minutes after they arrived at the facility, Caorte said,he heard burst of fire followed by a commotion then another burst of fire.
“I later learned that the subjects were Mayor Espinosa and one (Raul) Yap,” Caorte said.
He also said that while he knew that Espinosa was among the prisoners at the jail facility, he had no idea that the subject of the operation was Espinosa, father of Eastern Visayas drug lord.
Caorte said that he did not see a firearm near the dead body of Espinosa saying that he was able to see the corpse of Espinosa after the team of the Scene of the Crime Operatives (SOCO) from Ormoc City finished their work.
Caorte said that he is willing to appear before the Senate to answer senators’ questions on the matter.
“I will only tell them what I knew. I was there to cover the operation and nothing else,”Caorte said.
During the Senate inquiry on Thursday(Nov.10), the senators asked that Caorte be summoned to shed light on some issues related to the death of Espinosa.
(JOEY A. GABIETA)

TACLOBAN CITY-Annual poverty incidence among families in Eastern Visayas in 2015 was estimated at 30.7 percent based on official poverty statistics released by the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA).
This implies that around 3 in every 10 families in Eastern Visayas are poor.
During the same period in 2012, poverty incidence among families in the region was estimated at 37.4 percent.
A significant reduction by 6.7 percentage points was observed between 2012 and 2015.
Among the provinces in the region, Biliran registered the lowest poverty incidence among families at 17.4 percent.
Leyte ranked second lowest at 23.6 percent, followed by Southern Leyte, Eastern Samar and Samar with 30.2, 37.4 and 39.5 percent, respectively.

Meanwhile, Northern Samar remained to record the highest poverty incidence at 47.9 percent.
Improvements in poverty incidence between 2012 and 2015 were observed in all provinces in the region except Northern Samar, the only province that registered an increase by 4.4 percentage points from 43.5 percent in 2012 to 47.9 percent in 2015.
Eastern Samar recorded the biggest significant decrease by 18.0 percentage points from 55.4 percent in 2012 to 37.4 percent in 2015.
All provinces in the country were clustered from 1 to 5 using confidence intervals of poverty incidence as the clustering variable, where Cluster 1 comprises the bottom poor provinces and Cluster 5 comprises the least poor provinces.
In 2015, Northern Samar and Samar were included in cluster 1; Eastern Samar and Southern Leyte belonged in cluster 2, while Leyte and Biliran were in cluster 3.
During 2009, 2012, and 2015, the province of Northern Samar was consistently included in the cluster of poor provinces.
The annual per capita poverty threshold in the region, or the minimum income required to meet the basic food and non-food needs of every person, was estimated at P21,304.
This indicates an increase of about 17.9 percent from the P18,076 annual per capita poverty threshold in 2012.
This implies that a family of five in Eastern Visayas must have at least P8,877 on the average every month to meet both basic food and non-food needs. (PR)