THE Department of Social Welfare and Development has an awesome task in its hands in the next few months if it wants to save the Area I Vocation Rehabilitation center in Bonuan now in grave danger of being washed out to the Lingayen Gulf.

Social Welfare Secretary Esperanza Cabral, who was recently in Dagupan vowed to do something to save the AVRC and the adjacent community in Bonuan seriously threatened by erosion coming from waves of the Lingayen Gulf.

Cabral was informed by DSWD Regional Director Margarita Sampang and AVRC personnel that a large tract of the property of the Center had already been eaten away by giant waves from the Lingayen Gulf through the years.

In fact, she said, the property of AVRC is being eroded at the rate of three meters each year and by 2010, one of the center buildings may soon be part of the sea.

She told newsmen that relocation is an option but on the other hand, she thinks that it is best that they should first do something to prevent erosion.

Proposed to be the relocation site of the AVRC is the lot on which the Center for Children and Center for Abused Women in barangay Bonuan Binloc are located. Cabral said that since they lack money, they can not build the same building facilities that AVRC ha in the new location.

“Relocation is an option but we need a lot of money to develop the same kind of infrastructure that we have in another area,” she explained.

The other option, she said, is to do something so that the sea would not encroach on the AVRC property, as well as the rest of the community that will be the next ones to be eroded into the sea.

“Okay we move, but we should think of what will happen to the next structure after us,” she said.

AVRC was established in 1962 as the first Regional Rehabilitation Training Center in Dagupan City. It covers the provinces of Region 1; Abra; Benguet; and Mt. Province in the Cordillera Administrative Region, and Zambales, Tarlac and Olongapo City in Region III.

The AVRC I provides rehabilitation to persons with disabilities (PWDs) for them to achieve highest possible level of physical, mental, social and economic self-sufficiency within the bounds of their capacities and limitations so they may have useful and productive community life.

The clientele of AVRC includes the physically disabled, socially disabled and mentally disabled.

The physically disabled include those visually impaired, orthopedically handicapped, hearing and speech impaired and those with speech defect, hunchback, cleft palate and harelip.(PNA)