The Salesians of Don Bosco
Don Bosco Calauan
Km 77 Southville 7, Site 2-Habitat for Humanity
Bgy. Dayap, Calauan, Laguna
Mobile Phone: +63917-539 1162; +63917-532 0257
BoscSustainable Enterprise and
Economic Development Services, Inc.
Creative and Created Ministries
I am currently assigned at the Southville 7 (SV-7) in Calauan, Laguna, a 107-hectare community
owned by the National Housing Authority (NHA) Office of the President. This is a resettlement site of more
than 6,400 families as of June 2011 who came from various parts of Metro Manila slums and a big bulk of
informal settlers along the River Pasig. The place is projected with a population of 10,000 families or 50,000
to 80,000 relocatees at the end of the year 2011. This indeed is a social volcano where various crimes, vices
and other social issues and concerns can move stealthily, if without proper education and evangelization pro-
grams.
On a positive note, three (3) Salesians of Don Bosco (SDB), Fr. Salvador Pablo, Br. Ramon dela Cruz,
and yours truly Fr. Pat Villasanta have started the Salesian presence and work here last May of 2010. With us
are other stakeholders: Diocese of San Pablo, Caritas, LGU, ABS-CBN Foundation, Kapit-Bisig sa Ilog Pasig,
SMC Foundation, Aboitiz Transport System, Bahrain, DMCI Homes, Ayala Group of Companies, Habitat for
Humanity, Manila Water, Rockwell Land and other CSR stakes and construction companies who have pooled
efforts in organizing and in undertaking the said new community at Brgy. Dayap & Sto. Tomas in Calauan,
Laguna.
The project is intended to make this SV-7 a sustainable community with adequate shelter, clean
water, sanitation, education, and venues for community empowerment. However, observably, the following
need immediate attention:
1. Drinking Water Supply: What the SV-7 community needs is clean and safe water. Water from the
company Manila Water provides potable water from the well and spring gate, yet the negotiations
and approval seem to go eternal with the LGU and the Laguna Water.
2. Electricity: As former Mayor Lito Atienza once commented in an informal dialogue, “If you want to
obtain discipline and order in a place, put lights around the place and illumine the whole place.” In
the case of SV-7 in Calauan, this is still farfetched in reality. We wonder, is it the same vicious circle of
finger pointing by the powers that be? Are we doomed to perpetual infernal darkness and heat?
3. Proper hygiene and health care: Breeding multi-viral and parasitic diseases have brought death to
an infant born and sadly the child only lived for three days. The mosaic plaque of flies and mosquitoes
and ‘basura’ around the place has made this God forsaken place become a garbage of humanity and
worst still an in-breeding of social restlessness that could spark a mass revolt when patience run dry.
4. No Work: This concentrated Camp of projected 80,000 settlers is a comparatively veritable den
of hungry and undernourished rats, where cursing and stealing are a daily grind. Some are going back
to the urban streets to be ‘kariton’ or cart-dwellers to work.
