Leyte Landslide

CATMON, St. Bernard, Southern Leyte -- Senator Richard Gordon, the Philippine National Red Cross (PNRC) chairman, has sought the filing of a case against the contractor who abandoned the P35-million housing project here.

"I want the contractor charged and if he is gone abroad we will extradite him. I'm a lawyer, I know what I'm saying," Gordon told Southern Leyte Red Cross administrator Romeo Orilla, who informed the senator that the contractor may have left the country.

Orilla said the LB Builders, reportedly based in Tacloban, had collected 15 percent of the contract amount as mobilization fund.

But the contractor only accomplished 12 percent of about 190 houses to be built for evacuees from Hinabian, Magatas, and Kauswagan villages, he said.

Orilla said the contractor abandoned the project when it failed to pay its suppliers after Red Cross rejected the contractor's efforts to collect payment for 50 percent of the project.

"How could we pay 50 percent when they only finished 12 percent?" Orilla said. The project was stopped last November.

Gordon issued the directive to the Red Cross staff when he saw the abandoned site during an ocular inspection with PNRC secretary general Alma Corazon de Leon, Southern Leyte Governor Rosette Lerias and some Red Cross staffers.

Gordon also instructed his staff to speed up the re-bidding process and exert all efforts to finish the project, which was funded by the International Federation of the Red Cross (IFRC).

Gordon had denied the bidding for the Catmon project might have been rigged.

"To say that it was rigged was unfair, I had to be frank with you. We value integrity here," Gordon said.

He said Manila-based contractors rejected the project because it was low-cost housing.

In 2003, a Red Cross staff figured in an anomalous transaction for a housing project on Panaon Island, which enabled a supplier to collect payments without delivering materials. The project was started after a landslide killed more than 150 people on Panaon.

The controversy resulted in the termination of Red Cross officials in the province and from Metro Manila.

Gordon also disclosed that the Philippine National Red Cross received about P200 million in donations for Guinsaugon victims.

Gordon said that while there were 200 families who survived the tragedy of Guinsaugon, the Red Cross saw it fit to build houses for residents of neighboring barangay (villages) who also had to be moved out of their communities for fear that another landslide would hit them, too.

"It means moving a lot of people out of harm's way. In other countries, they build tents. Here, we build houses," he added.