Walking the talk!
SOME people may say it is easy to say, as I did in last week’s column, what the business sector, especially its big players, could or should have done to hasten the recovery of Leyte province and other areas affected by Supertyphoon Yolanda (international code name Haiyan) last November.
Those who read that column might have asked, cliché-wise: “Easy to talk the talk, but can you walk the talk?” My answer is a resounding yes! I would not have written against businesses abandoning the disaster area, which makes recovery efforts more difficult, if I abandoned Leyte, or plans of investing there, if I didn’t do it myself.
Let me relate what Vista Land & Lifescapes Inc., through its Camella Homes unit, did right after the super typhoon. Camella Homes established residential communities in the cities of Tacloban and Ormoc, which were directly affected by Yolanda. While the storm surge did not reach the Camella communities, the strong winds blew away the roofs of many homes.
Camella Homes immediately mobilized workers from its projects in different areas of the country and sent them, together with construction equipment and materials, as well as generators, to Leyte. The workers replaced the roofs, and even repainted some of the houses and gates, to return the subdivisions to what they were before the disaster struck.
Thus, the Camella communities in Tacloban and Ormoc recovered very fast. Two months after Yolanda struck, most of the damaged homes in the Camella subdivisions were completely restored. In fact, some portions of the subdivisions already had lights and were able to hang lanterns during Christmas last year, when most of the typhoon-hit areas were still in darkness.
We repaired 383 units in Camella Tacloban and 93 units in Ormoc. We shouldered 100 percent of the repairs (labor and materials) for the unoccupied units and half for the occupied homes, allowing the owners to pay the balance on an installment basis.
Camella did this to inspire or lead in the rise of Tacloban, in the recovery of Leyte. We wanted to show the businesses in the area, and the people, that recovery could really happen.
At that time, I was really hoping that fast-food chain operators, malls and other businesses would open as quickly as possible, because I could see very clearly that the earlier these businesses opened, the quicker the recovery would be.
At the same time, other developers practically abandoned the area and even told me that nobody in his or her right mind would buy homes in Tacloban. I felt that this should be immediately corrected. So we launched our lowest-end product—Lumina—in Tacloban and, later on, in Ormoc. This was our socialized series to help those who wanted to buy a Camella Homes unit, but couldn’t afford it. Lumina Homes will sell units at less than P1.5 million.
Camella Tacloban is already expanding. The acquisition of additional land in 2011 brought its total area to 12 hectares. Launched in 2009, Camella Tacloban currently has about 500 units. Camella Ormoc, on the other hand, is targeting 300 units. Camella is also developing projects in other parts of Leyte, and plans to expand to Calbayog City in Samar province.
Camella took the opposite direction and invested a lot more, and we’re looking for other opportunities to contribute more to the economy of the stricken areas.
These projects may not be as laudable in terms of monetary returns, but I am confident that they will have a minimal impact on the bottom line of the Vista Land group.
Fortunately, Vista Land is currently doing well. So I can consider our advocacy in the disaster-stricken areas as giving back or paying forward. Or, simply, walking the talk!
To be concluded next Tuesday
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