Treñas issues warning to creek dwellers

ILOILO CITY – Mayor Jerry P. Treñas issued a warning today to all tagged families living along the danger zones here, especially those along the Dungon Creek and Jaro River who registered refusal to transfer to the city relocation site in San Isidro, Jaro that their relocation award will have to be forfeited in favor of other relocates.

Showing his strong political will to relocate the endangered families, Treñas said their houses along the danger zones will have to be demolished by the city government.

The bitter lessons learned from Typhoon Frank last June 2008, is a reminder that those living along the rivers and creeks will have to go to amore safe place such as the relocation site, Treñas said.

The Iloilo City Urban Poor Affairs Office (ICUPAO) has tagged 614 families living along the Dungon Creek in Mandurriao and Jaro districts on top of more than 2,300 families living the Jaro River.

Spanning some 3.5 kilometers by passing 13 barangays, the Dungon Creek will be dredged, widened and deepened by the city government with assistance from the Paglaum Fund of some P50 million.

Treñas said the dredging will start by June this year so as to improve the creek, pinpointed earlier as the source of flashfloods last year that affect houses and families in Mandurriao and Jaro district last year.

Some families have aired resistance to the relocation place for reasons of livelihood and education of their children.

But the city chief executive said the city government and other government agencies will address the problem on livelihood by providing assistance to income generating activities such as a bakery, sari-sari stores, vegetable gardens and other skills training activities.

The city is also planning to put up 2 daycare centers, a health center and improve the nearby existing elementary school to absorb the relocatees’ children of school age.

MIWD will also put up an extension potable water service with P2 million from Local Waterworks Utility Administrator Butch Pichay. The Department of Energy and Panay Electric Company will be extending electric power service to the area to be funded with P14 million realized from the Electric Power Industry Reform Act (EPIRA).

Treñas said the 16-hectare San Isidro relocation site will soon become a show window and pampered site once all developments are completed. This will include 500 concrete houses from the DSWD and Habitat for Humanity, 120 units funded by the Italian Embassy, 60 from Gawad Kalinga, and 160 from the CLIFF and homeless urban poor organizations.
By Lydia C. Pendon