MOISES PADILLA, Negros Occidental -- Negros Occidental fifth district Rep. Emilio Bernardino Yulo III is asking for a clear plan for Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) of Kanlaon Volcano.

“There’s no clear plan what’s going to happen in the next three months, six months, or the next year,” Yulo said in a media interview.

Yulo stressed the need to establish a clear plan for the evacuees.

“They were there (evacuation centers) for the last six months. They have been physically tired, mentally disturbed, psychologically distressed, and sexually deprived,” he said.

Yulo said they do not know the plan because it is the Office of Civil Defense (OCD) that creates the policies.

“It is better for them to be stubborn so that their problems will be given attention,” Yulo said following an incident where 37 out of 76 families from Barangay Cabagna-an, La Castellana, Negros Occidental, left a school-based evacuation center without the consent of authorities on Monday, June 30.

“Assuming the crisis will be for the next how many years. Are we going to say that they will abandon their livelihood?” Yulo said.

Yulo said that he thinks that IDPs will not live in a tent city and abandon their sole means of livelihood. “They are also concern for the future of their family,” he added.

He said that he plans to deliver a privilege speech when Congress opens to notify the national government if this would not be resolved.

Yulo said that the relocation is a total solution to the problem.

“We cannot force them to get out of not just their comfort zone, but their economic livelihood,” he added.

He said that he supports finding an ideal area for the IDPs outside the danger zone and provide them with alternative means of livelihood.

Yulo thanked the Department of Education (DepEd) for lending classrooms to IDPs at night.

“We are glad for DepEd’s quick response and for taking a look at the problem,” he said.

La Castellana is under the fifth district of the province.

La Castellana Vice Mayor Rhummyla Nicor-Mangilimutan admitted that the local government and the provincial government cannot sustain the needs of the IDPs for a year, considering their huge number reaching more than 4,000 people.

She said that the province now has a budget to procure a property for the relocation site and the local government, despite the financial constraints, still finds a way to provide medical, burial, and educational assistance to the evacuees.

“I pity the evacuees. Their livelihood was really destroyed,” she said.