People Powwow: A home for Yolanda

By HERBERT VEGO

HER name is Yolanda, a victim of a typhoon by that name. She now lives with a relative here in Iloilo City while waiting for government to rebuild her home in Ajuy, Iloilo.

She came into my mind when I met by chance at SM City-Iloilo my childhood friend and classmate, Jose Escartin, a consultant at the National Housing Authority (NHA).

I took the opportunity to confide to him about the housing problem of Yolanda.

“Tough luck!” Joe exclaimed, “I was in Ajuy the other day in behalf of Atty. Cruz to herald the good news that NHA would be building at least 5,000 homes for Yolanda victims.”

Having Atty. Chito Cruz as administrator of NHA is one of the few right decisions of the PNoy administration. Cruz, a silent and law-profile technocrat, has an excellent and clean track record in urban planning. He used to be deputy administrator of the Subic Bay Metropolitan Authority (SBMA). He could be a right material for senator in 2016.

Joe enthused that NHA would construct at least 200,000 houses in all “Yolanda”-ravaged cities, towns and barangays at a cost of P280,000 per unit. Each 40-square-meter house would sit on a 40-square-meter lot.

Of the aforesaid number of units, at least 60,000 would rise in the four Panay provinces of Iloilo, Antique, Capiz and Aklan.

I told Joe that he had just provided me with an answer to the problem of Ajuy. Only a month ago, while gracing our radio program Reklamo Publiko, Ajuy’s Mayor Juancho Alvarez lamented about the lack of rehabilitation support from the national government.

Well, Mayor, patience pays. There’s also fun in waiting.

And to Yolanda, my friend, may one of the new homes be yours.

***

Despite oft-heard laments about how polluted Boracay has become, it remains a “must” in the itinerary of thousands of first-time tourists. Thanks to the Department of Tourism which has truly done a good job of promoting the island as a “tourist paradise.”

For the last two summer months for instance, La Carmela de Boracay – the famous hotel of our amiable friend Boy So – has been fully booked. Other hotels, restaurants and shops are crowded along the beach like spice shops in a Middle Eastern bazaar. Vendors selling watches, sunglasses, jewelery and boat trips pester beach combers like flies on honey.

A second cousin of mine, Alma Sue Balonon-Rosen, has arrived with his family from Rochester, New York. Their itinerary includes two nights in Boracay.

Alma and her hubby Mitchel, I understand, have decided to spend a grand vacation to several historical and tourist spots in the Philippines as a gift to their two children, Peter and Marissa, who have just finished college in New York.

If I may suggest, please try to see the old movie Too Late the Hero in the Internet. The movie, a Michael Caine starrer filmed in Boracay in 1969, shows the island in those days when it was almost uninhabited.

***

A friend told me the story of a businessman who complied with his doctor’s order to undergo chemotherapy to combat nose cancer. At the same time, however, he also took extract of the popular herb rosas sa baybayon. The patient is now cancer-free.

I have no doubt that rosas did it. There was a time when representatives of a Japanese drug company came to Manila looking for suppliers of rosas sa baybayon because they would like to turn it into tablets and capsules to be sold in Japan.

Isn’t it ironic that Filipino doctors doubt the potency of this plant for early-stage cancer?/PN