150 houses set for award to poor Ifugao families

By Juan B. Dait, Jr.

LAMUT, Ifugao—A Gawad Kalinga housing project will soon rise on a five-hectare lot in Barangay Payawan, this town.

The Gawad Kalinga village will be a joint project of the Gawad Kalinga Foundation, the Couples for Christ Movement and the Knights of Columbus, according to Engr. Jaime Malingan, Provincial Coordinator of the Couples for Christ Movement of Ifugao.

According to Malingan who is coordinating the project, the village will consist of 150 housing units to be awarded to indigent Ifugao families.

Each of the houses will be constructed with P75,000 worth of materials, Malingan revealed. He added that labor for the construction of the houses will be provided free by voluntary workers from peoples’ organizations.

The five-hectare lot on which the Gawad Kalinga village will rise was donated to the Gawad Kalinga Foundation by Rosito malingan, a local civic leader who is the son of a former director of the Mountain Province Development Authority (MPDA).

In an interview, Rosito Malingan said that he donated the five-hectare lot to the provincial government of Ifugao two years ago through the Ifugao Sangguniang Panlalawigan (SP) but the legislative body refused to accept the donation on the ground that the area was not a titled property.

Claiming that the lot was part of an ancestral land which he inherited from his late father, Eladio Malingan, Rosito withdrew his donation to the provincial government and turned it over directly to the Gawad Kalinga Foundation.

The two-year delay in the construction of the Gawad Kalinga housing project in this province resulted in the diversion of 60 units of donated Gawad Kalinga housing units to the provinces of Apayao and Kalinga, according to Engr. Jaime Malingan, provincial coordinator of the Couples for Christ movement in this province and Coordinator of the Gawad Kalinga project.