CARIGARA, Leyte- Residents of various barangays of this town whose houses were damaged due to the onslaught of supertyphoon Yolanda, received shelter materials from a Japan-based group.The Peace Wind has a target 690 families to be given the shelter materials, of which 75 percent of them already received the donation, said Satoshi Kawai, the group representative. The families, who are mostly living in upland villages of Carigara, were chosen through the group’s regional partner, the Leyte Center for Development, Inc. (LCDE).The shelter kits distributed to the beneficiaries include GI sheets, plywood and coco lumber with an equivalent amount of P11, 000.According to Kawai, their group chose to help residents of Carigara after they learned that only few international humanitarian groups and local non-government organizations have extended assistance to the affected families of said town which sustained damages due to Yolanda.“We went first to Samar to help the residents affected there but we learned that the province is already crowded with international and local NGOs that provides relief and rehabilitation assistance. That is why we went here to Leyte and chose Carigara to be given with assistance,” Satoshi explained.He added that at first, they wanted to focus in providing shelter needs of the residents but after seeing some public facilities for children in Carigara that were also damaged by the supertyphoon, they decided to rebuild two day care centers in the said town.“We will continue helping typhoon -affected residents in this province as long as there is fund coming,’ Satoshi said. Meantime, LCDE executive director, Jazmin Jerusalem and a companion will be sent to Japan to help them raise more funds for their relief and rehabilitation efforts.“Right now, people like in Japan had slowly forgotten what had happened here. So we need to strengthen our effort in looking for funds for our rehabilitation program by asking those who had personally experienced the typhoon to talk with our local donors so help will not be stopped,” Satoshi added.(ROEL T. AMAZONA)

TACLOBAN CITY- Six months after supertyphoon Yolanda battered this city and other parts of the Visayas, thousands are still living under tents or temporary shelters.
And needless to say, the issue on shelter remain to be among the biggest concerns of storm victims.
Despite of the “no build zone” policy imposed by the government, there are still families living in tents and makeshifts. It is in these areas where majority of the people of this city were killed due to the storm surges generated by Yolanda.
Derrick Anido, chief of the City Disaster Risk Reduction Management Council, said that rebuilding homes take some time, more so that the city government is confronted with other problems like lack of available lots where these displaced families could be permanently relocated.
Thus, these typhoon survivors living in the coastal areas, especially, those in the no build zones continue to live there.
They had to reconstruct again some shanty houses, made of tarpaulins for their roofs while others put some woods on the side to make them somehow withstand against strong winds or even during inclement weather.
Pedro Cajipe, a father of four children, recalled how the water has submerged all the houses in Costa Brava, San Jose District and how fallen and uprooted trees destroyed most of the houses in their village, one of the hardest-hit barangays in Tacloban.
“Water was all over, submerging all the houses in our village. The storm surge took everything; no food, no place to stay, no savings for us to buy private lots,” Cajipe said.
People still have nowhere to go other than their shanty houses in the no build zone areas, and hundreds of them are facing threat of disease, contaminating drinking water or no water at all to drink.
Victims of the typhoon are reluctant to stay longer in the tent cities because of some protection concerns, particularly on their children.
For Jenny Palahinog, a resident of Old Road Sagkahan, her biggest concern living in tent is the safety of her children.
“I am more concern on my children especially my daughter. I feel not safe staying here in the tent city,” Palahinog, who has four children, said.
According to her, her family sleeps on mattresses placed on top of wood and plastic pallets. Their food, clothing and other belongings were arranged neatly along the wall of the tent.
“We try our best to make it look like home,” she said.
While admitting that the living conditions at the tent cities, which are located within the danger zones, is far from ideal for their children, Cajipe and Palahinog, they have no choice until the government find them a permanent and safe relocation site. (JAZMIN BONIFACIO)

TACLOBAN CITY- The SM Foundation is to rehabilitate the Tacloban City Hospital of this city as it recently signed a memorandum of agreement for this effect.
The Tacloban City Hospital is a 25-bed public hospital managed by the city government that sustained major damages during the supertyphoon Yolanda.
The hospital’s main building and its out-patient department building, which sustained major damages, are to be repair by the SM Foundation.
Signing the agreement were Rehabilitation Secretary Panfilo Lacson and his Undersecretary Danilo Antonio; Tacloban City Mayor Alfred Romualdez; Health Undersecretary Teodoro Herbosa and health regional director Jose Llacuna Jr., Teresita Sy-Coson and Connie Angeles, trustee and executive director foe health and programs of the SM Foundation, respectively.
In an interview with Leyte Samar Daily Express, Angeles said that the repair will likewise involve the expansion and relocation of the hospital’s emergency room to accommodate more patients who needs emergency assistance.
A malnutrition ward will also be established to address the targets of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and an additional wellness center, to be named as Felicidad Sy Wellness Center for Children and the Elderly.
The actual construction started last March 21 with July of this year as the target date of completion.
According to Angeles, 80% of the labor forces in the renovation were from the local community and in the process, has provided means of livelihood to the disaster-stricken residents.
She added that the foundation will also provide basic hospital equipment to service the medical needs of the 138 barangays of the city.
Meanwhile, rural health units (RHUs) of Tolosa, Leyte and Basey, Samar will also undergo repair and rehabilitation to be funded by the foundation in partnership with the BDO Foundation in the Visayas, Angeles said. (RYAN GABRIEL L.ARCENAS)

MACARTHUR, Leyte- Sixty-three year old Alfredo Cordero has been longing to go back to his farm and resume planting rice after supertyphoon Yolanda destroyed his crops last year but could no longer do so.
He blamed the mining operations at their barangay in Maya, once one of the rice-producing villages of their town.
“Because of this mining, I could no longer go to work. These numbness and itchiness on my feet caused me to retreat from going to my farm,” Cordero said as he alleges that what he was suffering on his feet is “due to the water coming from the mine” when the company fixed the water line going to his farmland.
He, however, says that he has yet to see a doctor to check on how bad is the condition of his feet.
Thelma Palana, mother of five children, also said that she lost her livelihood due to the same mining activities in her village.
“Our problem here is mining. We cannot go on planting because of the water coming from the mine. Even if the rain is little, the water coming from the mine overflows to our farm and our vegetables are being flooded,” Palana said pointing to the same black sand mining operation right in the middle of a farmland which according to her, also started from the neighboring village of Pongon.
“What will happen to our children when this farm area will turn into sand in the future” asked the two.
Bernardita Morcilla, 67, who acted as a leader of the farmers on their complaints, identified the different mining groups in Mac Arthur as RT (in Maya), Nicua and Leyte Iron Sand Corporation (in Pongon) and Strong Belt Mining Development Corporation (in San Pedro).
Morcilla, secretary-general of Unahin Lagi Natin ang Diyos – Bito Lake Fisher folks Association (UNLAD-BLFA), also get the support of nationwide alliance of anti-mining groups Alyansa Tigil Mina.
“We suffered during Yolanda; now we are facing another suffering due to the mining. Two planting seasons have already passed yet our farmers were not able to farm because of them. Some of the roads leading to our farms are no longer accessible to us. Their coming here brought only destruction, ”Morcila said, also recalling the fish kill brought by another Nicua mine company in Lake Bito in the village of Imelda in MacArthur last 2012 which killed around 22 tons of tilapia worth about P1.87 million.
Nicua has ceased its operation, Morcilla said.
“But we have heard that these mining are just using other names so they can continue their activities in our town.”
“We don’t have coconuts anymore, we don’t have food, and we even lost our fishes. Do they want us to die here?” she asked.
Nilo Cordero, farmer and a village councilor who also opposed the mining, said that in his village in Maya alone, about 150 households are being affected by the mining.
He added that their village has not yet issued any approval and conducted consultation with the people on the mining activities in their area.
In the neighboring village of San Pedro, Maribel Pulga, 32, said that the mining is operating in their area “without conducting public consultation.”
“The former village captain told me that they have issued resolution on the mining before yet only for its installation,” said Pulga, noting that the mine activities in the area have been ongoing for the past five years already.
“I am not sure that my two children will finish school. I know one of them may be turned into fishing or farming, the reason I am fighting for this. I hope mining will stop here,” Pulga appealed.
Nonita Caguioa, officer-in-charge of Mines Environment and Safety Division at the regional Mines and Geosciences Bureau (MGB), said that farmer and fisher folk need not to worry “because the mine company is compliant.”
“We haven’t heard any problem on the environment. Every now and then, we visited the area to check them. What they are mining now is only small. The 10 hectares for one year will not even be finished by the company,” said Caguioa, adding that the region should have been grateful to them because they have contributed during the clearing operations and the recovery and rehabilitation after Yolanda through their heavy equipment “free of charge from the government.”
The MGB official said that the mining companies did not terminated their workers after Yolanda and even gave them assistance.
Caguioa said that despite receiving many mine applications, the region only have “about three medium scale mining operating here.”
“We have about 20 applicants for mineral production joint agreement. Yet those operational are only about three. Why? Because of its declaration of mining project feasibility, which is difficult to get.”
Caguioa said that those given mining permits are operating in Eastern Samar and in Leyte with the rest are doing sand and gravel extractions.
The mining company granted permit to operate in Leyte is the Strong Belt mining in San Pedro, MacArthur. It was granted permit to mine 2,000 hectares.
“But what they can mine in a year time is less than ten hectares. That is the contract entered by the government thru Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) with that company with duration of 25 years,” the MGB official said.
Asked if the farmers are right calling for the suspension of mining activities in their town, Caguioa said she has one answer for it, saying: “If ever it will be stopped, tell me if there is a good company that can give jobs outright aside from mining company?”
Meanwhile, in reaction to Leyte Samar Daily Express inquiry to the Malacanang Palace on the need for suspension of mining in Yolanda-hit Leyte, Presidential Communications Operations Office Secretary Herminio Coloma Jr., said that the Nicua has been suspended to conduct any mining operation in Leyte.
“First, only one company is authorized to undertake mining of black sand in Leyte, this is Strong built Mining. The black sand mining of Nicua is suspended for about two years now while the DENR did not approve the application of another company, Explosives Consultation, pending result of assessment of any contribution of any black sand mining to the impact of Yolanda,” Coloma said in a phone interview. (RONALD O.REYES)

As part of measures to make transactions convenient for members, the Social Security System (SSS) has partnered with the National Statistics Office (NSO) in developing a data matching program that will regularly scan the civil registry for deaths and marriages of SSS pensioners to verify their continued eligibility to pension.
The SSS-NSO partnership was forged under a memorandum of agreement signed by SSS President and Chief Executive Officer Emilio de Quiros, Jr. and NSO Administrator Carmelita Ericta on February 14, 2014.
Rita Baloy, SSS Officer-in-Charge for Benefits Administration, said the SSS-NSO partnership may pave the way for the eventual waiving of the Annual Confirmation of Pensioners (ACOP) – or the required visit or submission of documents to reconfirm pension eligibility — for certain types of pensioners.
The pensioner’s death, remarriage of a surviving spouse and marriage of a dependent below age 21 are among the reasons for the permanent stoppage of pensions. However, monitoring other factors for pension cancellation – such as employment, cohabitation and recovery from disability — still needs the ACOP since these cannot be checked using NSO data.
“While the development of the new SSS-NSO project is underway, ACOP compliance is still expected of all SSS pensioners at present to ensure the continued release of their pension,” Baloy emphasized.
During ‘Phase 1” or the pilot implementation, the SSS-NSO data matching will initially focus on pensioners aged 80 and above who, in consideration of their health conditions, were allowed to submit their ACOP requirements through a representative or via mail.
“Under the pilot run scheduled this year, SSS will no longer require the yearly ACOP visit or submission of documents for pensioners aged 80 and above, since we will instead check their current status using NSO records,” Baloy said. “If the pilot implementation is successful, we shall proceed to ‘Phase 2’ that will involve NSO data matching for all SSS pensioners.”
With the wider access to NSO records, the SSS can readily secure the necessary certifications to verify the documents submitted by pensioners under the ACOP to ensure their authenticity.
Aside from helping pensioners with the ACOP, benefits of the SSS-NSO partnership are also seen to reach the greater SSS membership, since NSO will provide SSS a facility to secure certificates on behalf of transacting members and beneficiaries, thereby making the process more convenient for them.
The direct release of certificates from NSO to SSS will also help facilitate faster processing of benefit claims and other SSS transactions. NSO documents such as birth, marriage and death certificates are normally required by SSS to ensure the authenticity of claims filed by members and beneficiaries. (PR)