Displaced residents of Lupi town in Camarines Sur province built their own homes in Angat Buhay Village after receiving training from the Office of the Vice President’s (OVP) private partners.
Vice President Leni Robredo proudly showed off the beneficiaries of her third Angat Buhay Village, which provided homes for 120 families.
The beneficiaries were victims of Typhoon Ulysses last November 2020 who lost their homes because of heavy flooding.
Robredo toured the houses built by the residents themselves via Facebook Live on Monday, May 3.
“Dito po iyong mabuti kasi sobrang proud ‘yung mga residente na sila iyong—mamaya papakita po namin pero ‘yung lahat ng houses nakikita n’yo yung mga residents mismo yung gumawa. Sila yun mga mason. Sila yung karpintero. Sila yung electrician (Here, the residents are so proud... later, we will show to you but the residents built all the houses that you see here. They were the masons. They were the carpenters. They were the electricians),” she shared.
This is Robredo’s third Angat Buhay Village, the first and second were the ones in Albay and Marawi.
The OVP’s partners—the University of Nueva Caceres and Boysen Philippines—were responsible for training the residents how to build and paint their homes.
“Excited po sila (They are excited). After one whole day of training, ngayon naghahands-on sila (now they will have a hands-on training),” Robredo said.
Despite having a meager budget, the vice president decided to help these 120 families build back because they couldn’t go back to their homes, which were swept by the typhoon.
The local government unit (LGU) of Lupi provided the land as it already had an existing partnership with the National Housing Authority (NHA) and it purchased the area.
The OVP provided the materials funded by the donations from their Typhoon Relief Operations Drive and forged partnerships with private institutions and companies.
Robredo earlier said that the residents might be able to transfer to their new homes this month.