NHA cancels 10 ‘Yolanda’ housing contracts

TACLOBAN CITY, April 20  -- The National Housing Authority (NHA) central office has terminated the contract of 10 post-“Yolanda” housing builders due to delays and for being substandard, a regional official said Friday.

NHA Regional Manager Rizalde Mediavillo said their central office had cancelled from late last year until the first quarter of 2018 the contracts of these projects in some parts of Eastern Samar, Samar, and Leyte provinces after validating reports of poor-quality houses and for missing the timetable.

“Government had no option, but to terminate projects because developers could not do it. If a contract has a negative slippage of 15 percent, it is already a candidate for cancellation,” Mediavillo added.

He, however, refused to name the 10 projects with terminated contracts.

Earlier, the NHA main office cancelled the contract in Eastern Samar of JC Tayag Builders for registering 82 percent negative slippage in construction.

The NHA regional office here is tasked to monitor nearly 100 post-“Yolanda” housing projects in Leyte, Biliran, Samar, and Eastern Samar.

Cancelled projects will be bid out again using existing funds allocated for permanent housing of survivors of Super Typhoon Yolanda.

The NHA is eyeing to complete post-“Yolanda” permanent housing projects by end of 2019 amid issues of substandard houses hounding the resettlement efforts.

Mediavillo said accelerating the implementation of housing projects has become more attainable two years after the super typhoon.

For Eastern Visayas alone, about half of the 56,000 target permanent houses for typhoon survivors have been completed as of this month.

Early this year, the NHA approved at least PHP4 billion to build additional 12,016 houses for areas not previously covered by resettlement projects meant for “Yolanda”-affected areas.

Of the 12,016 houses, 9,516 units will rise in Leyte province -- 1,500 in Dulag town, 1,616 in Leyte, 1,000 in Barugo, 1,000 in Tabontabon, 2,000 in Villaba, 600 in Capoocan, 300 in Dagami, 1,000 in Sta. Fe, and 500 in Javier.

In Samar province, 2,500 new houses will be built in the towns of Talalora (1,000 units), Daram (1,000 houses), and Zumarraga (500 units).

Each resettlement site will have a multi-purpose covered court and training center to support livelihood and other community projects.

“The new projects have the same sizes, but we upgraded housing units, such as setting up of partitions and painted walls. The project is not perfect, but it is better than the previous (one),” Mediavillo added.

Each house has a 40-square meter lot area. It is loft-able with a total floor area of 33 square meters with structural improvements following the "Build Back Better Policy" and other guidelines for disaster-resilient housing. (SQM/PNA)