The need for stronger collaboration and to come up with a common starting ground for the quickest post Yolanda rebuilding efforts were the targets identified by officials and members of the Philippine Business for Social Progress Visayas during its 26th Annual Membership meeting last Wednesday.
PBSP Visayas Executive Director Rafael Lopa presented the portfolio for the early recovery and rehabilitation projects they have identified and are asking their 258 members to take part in it.
“We need to respond fast and as quick as we can. Relief efforts can only do so much. What we need to do now is to help these communities recover and live in a better condition than what they are living now, transferring them from the emergency shelters to something better,” Lopa said.
There were about 15 million people immediately affected by Yolanda, four million of that were displaced, 1.2 million homes damaged, with total damage value placed at P35 billion, said PBSP Visayas chairman Jose Antonio Aboitiz.
“The most affected areas were in the Visayas region including Capiz, Cebu, Iloilo, Leyte and Eastern and Western Samar. We will need help to rebuild these areas,” he said.
The PBSP lined up priority projects under four priority categories which are health, education, environment and livelihood.
Health
For health, the projects planned include the Safe Delivery Package for Pregnant Women and Repair of Rural Health Units (RHU) and Barangay Health Stations (BHS).
They have targeted 500 pregnant women in selected local government units in the affected areas and rebuild RHUs and BHS in eleven local government units that they have already identified.
These will be implemented in areas like Bantayan, Daanbantayan, Madridejos and Sta. Fe in Cebu; Tacloban and Palo in Leyte and Guiuan in Eastern Samar.
Education
The reconstruction of damaged classrooms, distribution of student starter kits and textbooks, and teacher’s learning guides; and feeding, are the education projects the group plan to undertake.
“For this project, we need about P111 million in project funds. We target to reconstruct 65 classrooms, give starter kits to 700 students, feed 315 students and distribute textbooks and learning guides to 200 teachers and 9,700 students.”
Environment
Repair of potable water systems and mangrove reforestation are the projects identified under the environment category.
Their target areas for these projects include Cebu, Iloilo, and Leyte.
They will also be distributing shelter repair kits to 1,100 households in Leyte to help especially those living in makeshift houses and tents transfer to temporary houses that offer more comfort.
“For this we need P14.5 million in funds.”
Livelihood
The PBSP Visayas will also implement at least six priority livelihood projects that will give a positive impact on the lives of the people in these affected areas.
These are Bio-Intensive Gardening packages to 450 households in Iloilo to help stabilize food supply, donation of fishing gears to 380 fisherfolks in Iloilo, rehabilitation of corn and rice farms for at least 200 farmers in 200 hectares of farm lands in the northern parts of Cebu, seaweeds production for 100 farmers also in the northern parts of Cebu, skills training for 150 people in Cebu, Iloilo, Leyte and Samar and Cash for Work for 2,000 people in Leyte.
For Cebu, 15 municipalities, and one city were directly affected by typhoon Yolanda, said Baltazar Tribunalo Jr., Cebu Provincial Task Force Paglig-on.
Tribunalo said they had already held meetings with the affected areas to know about their immediate needs.
“Our framework for rehabilitation puts emphasis on building safer, adaptive and disaster resilient communities. We can work together especially on rebuilding and rehabilitation projects here in Cebu since there’s not much that’s being done here,” he said.
For their set plans, Baltazar said that the total funds needed is P10.5 billion. Of which, they have already secured funding of P286.6 million from the Provincial Government and P2.05 billion from the national government.
“We need funding of P8.4 billion more to finance all the projects we have set until 2016.”
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