GOVERNMENT officials who recommended transfer of landslide-affected residents to safer ground admitted that ordering victims to move out and relocate elsewhere is easy to say but hard to implement.

"For residents who invested money, time and effort convincing them to leave is in itself an immense task and finding a suitable relocation for them is another battle to hurdle," said Social Welfare and Development regional director Porfiria Bernardez.

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As government ordered those affected to leave, no relocation sites have been identified either by those directly affected or the local government where they reside in, Bernardez said in a briefing with National Disaster Coordinating Council (NDCC) and United Nations World Food Program representatives at the office of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) at the Loakan Airport on Wednesday.

Office of Civil Defense (OCD) Regional Director Olive Luces said relocation will also cost the government. This will come in the form of infrastructure development, livelihood and provision of basic utilities.

"It will be a long process," Luces said.

Other than those recently affected by Typhoon Pepeng, there are other communities in various areas of the Cordillera Administrative Region (CAR) who have long been told to leave because their houses stand on geo-hazard areas. Many opted to stay or leave momentarily and return when the disaster has abated.

The NDCC, represented by Colonel Gregorio Catapang, said a solution to this is to convince those living in geo-hazard and flood-prone areas to leave their houses at the height of typhoons and allow them to return when the threat of landslides or floods wanes.

With meager resources spread out in areas hit by disaster, Catapang appealed for those who are able to practice pre-emptive evacuation measures.

The NDCC and representatives of the UN were in Baguio Wednesday to discuss measures on how to deliver relief items to far-flung areas in the Cordillera, which up to this time could not be reached due to road cuts and slides.

WFP procurement and logistics officer Samuel Falsis said six 20-footer container vans of assorted relief items have been allotted for the Cordillera but there are some that are still at the Wallace airbase in La Union because of accessibility issues.

He said the UN has a standby helicopter, which can be used to transport these goods to the far-flung areas in the region but to save on fuel, they prefer land transportation.

Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) is still in the process of clearing some roads that lead to other provinces in the Cordillera.

The Acop-Kapangan bridge, which was constructed in 2007, and the Benguet Nueva Vizcaya Road is undergoing clearing.

A "push through" has been built at the Benguet-Nueva Vizcaya Road but this is for light vehicles only as slippages still occur even when the rains have ceased, the DPWH reported.

Catapang suggested that if road networks in the region could not be accessed yet, some relief goods can be brought to La Union, which, like the Cordillera, was also hard hit by Typhoon Pepeng.