THE Mandaue City Government has begun a house-to-house validation of flood damage reports, prioritizing the hardest-hit barangays of Paknaan and Umapad.
City Administrator Gonzalo “Sally” Malig-on said the process will take two to three weeks to verify initial “hasty” reports and ensure aid is distributed fairly. To maintain credibility, City Social Welfare Services
(CSWS) staff are not allowed to validate in their own barangays.
“We prioritized the barangays we know were heavily hit so we can focus our personnel there,” he said.
According to Malig-on, the complete validation of all barangays is expected to take around two to three weeks from Wednesday, November 12, 2025.
Teams from the CSWS, together with barangay officials, are going around sitios to check the actual conditions of residents’ homes.
“The process is house-to-house. We will conduct interviews and verify the information in the initial list from MCDRRMO (Mandaue City Disaster Risk Reduction Management Office) and CSWS to see if the reports of fully washed-out homes are accurate,” he explained.
“If a CSWS worker lives in a certain barangay, they will be assigned to validate in a different one. This is to avoid bias and ensure credibility,” Malig-on said.
He explained that the initial reports submitted by barangays on partially and totally damaged homes were compiled quickly at the height of the typhoon, which is why physical verification is needed.
“We already have lists from all barangays, but those were done in haste. The physical visit will confirm whether those entries are true. The validated list may increase or decrease depending on what we find,” he said.
“We’re concentrating on the badly hit barangays first. These include the families who were totally washed out and are still staying in evacuation centers. They need help the earliest, and they must be identified right away,” Malig-on added.
He also noted that the National Government has requested data for possible assistance through the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD). Mandaue City has already submitted its initial report, but the entries are still undergoing verification.
“It’s possible that some people had themselves listed even if they were not genuinely affected or not substantially flooded. That will be seen during validation; that’s the purpose of this process,” he said.
While the National Government handles its own assistance program, Mandaue City is preparing separate measures specifically for families whose homes were washed away by floods.
“The City will have a different course of action for those who lost their homes. These families need long-term solutions,” Malig-on said. / ABC