444 landslide families to get cash assistance

Some 444 families displaced by the massive landslide that hit Barangay Tina-an in Naga City will be given financial humanitarian assistance by the city.

Naga City Mayor Kristine Vanessa Chiong met with the second cluster of affected families on Thursday to map out their relocation options and the corresponding financial assistance they will receive.

Chiong has offered two relocation sites: Barangay Valencia in Carcar City, which has 200 housing units constructed by the National Housing Authority (NHA) and ready for occupancy, and the Balili Property, which will soon host 320 units from the NHA and 50 units from the LGU.

Families whose houses were buried by debris or damaged by the search and retreival operations, will also be receiving P50,000 financial assistance.

The LGU has allocated over P58 million for the cash assistance of the affected families.

Chiong encouraged the survivors to use the financial assistance to look for a place to rent while they wait for the completion of the housing units.

This is also designed to decongest the evacuation centers and provide a more comfortable place to stay for the evacuees.

They were given seven days to decide and look for a place to rent.

While the NHA will start constructing the 320 units in January 2019, Naga City has already started the procurement process for the site of the 50 housing units using the P25 million augmented budget.

Chiong is also planning to add 150 more units next year, with a budget of P75 million.

However, families who will not avail of both housing sites will be given an additional P50,000.

Meanwhile, the evacuees, especially those whose houses were in the danger zone, were still not allowed to go back to their homes, as the area is still deemed dangerous by the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR and the Mines and Geosciences Bureau (MGB) which conducted another assessment on Monday.

“Above all ang life gyud maoy importante,” answered Arthur Villamor, Naga City Administrator, when the issue concerning the livestock business of some evacuees was raised.

The 444 families were identified based on the first delineation map, which covered over 170 hectares within and surrounding ground zero.

But Chiong said that the latest assessment by the MGB actually widened the area of the first danger zone.

She did not elaborate.