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By FROILAN GALLARDO
Contributor

IT is not enough that “Sendong” survivors be given basic shelter but efforts should be made to allow them to build lasting communities,  mongovernment organization leaders said in time for the commemoration of the typhoon that destroyed villages and homes here four years ago.

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Jerry Macabide, head of the Habitat for Humanity-Calaanan relocation, said Sendong victims were hastily uprooted from their former communities when the flashfloods destroyed their homes during the wee hours of Dec. 17, 2011.

“We found ourselves living among strangers in the evacuation centers and later in the relocation sites provided by national governments and NGOs,” Macabide said.

“Naturally, there was tension among us because we were all strangers. It did not help that our dwellings lay so close to each other,” he said.

Macabide said there were fights between Sendong survivors at various relocation sites in the beginning.

Cagayan de Oro’s Estate Management Office, citing figures from the Department of Environment and Natural Resources, estimated that more than 12,000 houses were destroyed when flashfloods triggered by Sendong overflowed from the banks of the Cagayan River on Dec. 17, 2011.

Sendong killed 674 residents in Cagayan de Oro and another 490 people in neighboring city of Iligan. The Office of Civil Defense also reported 47 people died in the province of Bukidnon.

The city government is still facing major problems in finding shelter, and providing basic necessities and livelihood to the thousands of Sendong survivors.

Four years after the flashfloods destroyed their homes and uprooted them from their communities, Sendong survivors  are still beset with  problems.

Ermin Pimentel of Xavier University’s Kristohanong Katilingban sa Pagpakabana-Social Involvement Office (KKP-SIO) said Sendong victims are facing problems in security of tenure, peace and order, health facilities, livelihood and basic necessities like water and electricity.

“There is not even a department in the city government coordinating all the efforts to provide shelters to the victims,” Pimentel said.

Pimentel said there are still more than 5,000 families that have not been provided with shelters four years after Sendong  struck.

He said those who were lucky enough to get houses in the relocation site are unsure whether they really own the houses because no tiles of the land have been issued to them.

Pimentel said even basic necessities like water is a big problem because the Cagayan de Oro Water District have yet to provide distribution pipes to the homes despite the allocation of P10 million from the national government.

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