POPE FRANCIS VILLAGE

Bayanihan or the outpouring cooperative spirit of Filipinos is traditionally exemplified when communities extend service to those in need without expecting anything in return. This is vividly captured in simple acts like lending a hand to someone carrying a heavy load,  helping an elderly cross the street or extending material or financial assistance to families affected by catastrophic events or disasters.  Even typhoon Yolanda survivors have their own ways of keeping the Bayanihan tradition alive. Community volunteers usually form part of additional workforce at Pope Francis Village. As members of the construction team, their volunteer service becomes their counterpart for the resettlement project.  Women volunteers assist in hauling of earth filling materials for the ongoing School Building construction. Amidst the sun's blazing heat, these volunteers worked all day as the school building project now gears up for the preparation of second floor slab....

Ignorance of science is absolutely a peril to development. This was a buzzword from Dr. Kelvin S. Rodolfo, an Earth and Environmental Scientist who spoke in a forum organized by the Urban Poor Associates this morning regarding the impacts of the proposed 27.3 kilometers embankment project to be built from Tacloban City to Palo and Tanauan, Leyte. Having extensively worked on the field of geological sciences, disaster risks reduction and climate change studies, his technical inputs uncovered many unforeseen impacts of the tide embankment as the  engineering works take-off. In his lectures, he presented several cases of ground movements and observable environmental hazards associated with poorly planned protective infrastructure projects.  He emphasized  that any planned development that entails alteration of the existing ecosystem and massive displacement of communities should be science-informed, otherwise these will only create more disasters. Dr.Kelvin Rodolfo ...

One of the approaches employed by Pope Francis Village is the integration of communities in the entire aspect of procurement management. A structure called “Community Support Group” (CSG) has been set-up primarily to ensure that communities are represented and consulted in all activities relative to the relocation project. Under the CSG are different teams composed of selected community members  responsible for communication and logistics, purchasing of construction materials, monitoring of delivered and requested materials and tools,  payment of suppliers and laborers, maintaining health and safety measures at the project site and over-all housing management. Through the facilitation and support of technical, social and secretariat teams, the CSG holds meeting every Saturday for regular updating on tasks, milestones achieved, challenges and problems arising from the project implementation and how the various teams managed to resolve these. Updating and feedbacking sessi...

 “We are gradually realizing our organization’s transformational roadmap. We wanted to make a difference in the way civilians treat us in much the same way that we wanted them to be our close allies.” These are the inspirational statements from Commanding Officer Ltc. Henry Bellen of the  53 rd Engineer Brigade of the Armed Forces of the Philippines during the Ceremonial Hand-over of Php13,000 worth of cement mobilized through the voluntary efforts of  Pope Francis Village community members. The pooled community contributions is intended for the construction of AFP’s proposed Multi-purpose Hall Project at Kankabato, San Jose, Tacloban City. Architect Rexan Rainer Cabangal, technical team representative speaking on behalf of the communities of Pope Francis Village and FRANCESCO during the ceremonial hand-over of materials  to AFP held at Brgy. San Jose this morning. Commanding Officer Ltc. Henry Bellen expressing his gratitude to the community leaders ...

By: Rexan Rainer Cabangal  Community Architect For a relocation project like Pope Francis Village (PFV) that involves land development and is challenged by the project site’s sloping terrain, huge amount of resources are needed. FRANCESCO, the implementing organization of PFV has initially linked with the Department of Public Works and Highways for site development. However because of the project’s high budgetary requirement and scale, FRANCESCO needed to directly leverage funding support from DPWH Central Office. Constrained by the rigid bureaucratic procedures and anticipation of the national election, approval of DPWH’s funding support to land development was deferred in the meantime. The Urban Poor Associates (UPA) heading the social team explored other alternative options. One of which was to collaborate with the Korean Armed Forces to access their heavy equipment for the needed hauling support for the Concrete Hollow Block (CHB) Livelihood Project and soil movement...

After almost two months of persistent negotiations and lobby work with Tacloban City Housing Office and engineering department, building officials finally approved and released the building permit for 3 row house designs of FRANCESCO’s integrated and people-driven in-city relocation project. This is an important milestone for communities who played a compelling role in several dialogues with city authorities for the purpose of securing exemptions from building permit fees  and other related charges.  Approved row-house designs for Pope Francis Village; Photo credit: FRANCESCO, Inc.  “I feel relieved that we now have a full grip of our building permit. This is like a step closer to getting a house that we can claim our own”, says Yolanda Sembrero, one of the frontline leaders involved in building permit processing. Mrs. Sembrero also recounted a few challenges and takeaways that they have experienced in dealing with the LGU. They were initially apprised...