Actors and television host German “Kuya Germs” Moreno and Jake Vargas grace the Christmas tree lighting and fireworks display at the Tutuban Center in Divisoria, Manila.(MNS photo)
SUBIC BAY FREEPORT (Mabuhay) – A Subic-based company is also helping rehabilitate areas devastated by super typhoon “Yolanda” (Haiyan) by constructing strong, light-weight tents for use by both victims and relief workers.
Subic Bay Metropolitan Authority (SBMA) chairman Roberto Garcia said that Delta Production Philippines Corporation is sending at least 30 units of temporary shelters to TaclobanCity and other areas in Eastern Visayas that were visited by the recent calamity.
“We are proud that the ingenuity and innovation of Filipino workers manufacturing these temporary shelters are being recognized world-wide,” Garcia said.
“We are doubly pleased that these same Subic-made products are being put to good use in reaching out to our kababayans (countrymen) in their time of need,” he added.
A registered company inside this Freeport zone, Delta is the manufacturer of easy-to-install, flexible scaffold systems and temporary shelters that are made mostly of steel and aluminum.
The company is playing a significant role in providing its client, the World Food Program (WFP), with world-class temporary shelters that can accommodate up to 400 or 500 individuals each.
Delta special project and sales manager Jon Allen Eschenburg said that the company is now working double-time to deliver on time collapsible tents ordered by WFP for shipment to typhoon victims and responders in Tacloban and other areas.
Eschenburg said the tents, which have a standard width of 10 meters, height of about three meters and length of up to 32 meters, can be easily assembled and turned into temporary schools, hospitals or warehouses.
“It is lightweight. A 10x3x24-meter tent weighs only 1.6 tons and can withstand strong winds with strength of up to 170 kilometers per hour,” Eschenburg said, adding that this is far lighter than those offered by other manufacturers abroad.
Last month, he said WFP ordered 32 tents for shipment to calamity-devastated areas in Visayas and Mindanao, while it also made separate orders for distribution to the Philippine National Red Cross in DavaoCity and the United Nations contingent in TaclobanCity.
In January 2010, Delta tents from Subic were shipped to Haiti to be used as temporary shelters for more than a quarter million residents who were left homeless after a magnitude 7.0 earthquake and several aftershocks struck that country.
“Many government and private organizations still believe that the best temporary shelters they can get for the victims can only be found abroad. What they don’t know is that, among the best they got are from Subic,” Eschenburg added. (MNS)