MANILA - Local officials continued clearing operations across Metro Manila and parts of Luzon battered by Tropical Storm Ondoy and Typhoon Pepeng.

Cainta Mayor Mon Ilagan told ANC's On the Scene on Thursday that he expects rehabilitation to take 6 months to 1 year.

"We would need P300 million in order to begin the normal lives of our people," Ilagan said.

He added that with the ongoing garbage cleanup, they expect to clear Cainta streets of trash by Sunday with the help of other local government units, congressmen, non-government organizations and other sectors.

Ilagan will also consult businessmen whose establishments had taken a huge blow when heavy rains and floods covered nearly all of Cainta when Ondoy struck.

"We have asked our [Rizal] provincial government to waive the penalty for the late payments for business and real property taxes," Ilagan explained.

Preventing outbreak

In Marikina, the city government is conducting extensive garbage cleanup to prevent a further outbreak of disease.

Mayor Marides Fernando said they are already dealing with a lot of cases of leptospirosis, dengue and diarrhea.

"We just have to do the best that we can do to remove it from the streets. You can imagine that all theseptic tanks had flooded and perhaps some of them had been cleaned out and what's really in the septic tanks is now in the streets," Fernando said in an interview on ANC's Top Story.

She added that they have begun a house-to-house campaign to increase awareness on leptospirosis.

Affected residents are given the medicine for free.

Relocating families

Fernando also explained that they have been relocating residents living near the Marikina River and other waterways even before Ondoy and Pepeng put parts of Metro Manila under water.

She said it should not have taken a catastrophe to underscore the importance of relocating families near waterways.

"Every time we in the local governments try to clear a community, we are the ones being castigated by the Presidential Commission on Urban Poor that we cannot remove urban settlers. So it has to take a typhoon of this proportion for us to realize that they should not be there."

Fernando also finds the Balik-Probinsya program being offered to evacuees impractical.

"You can give them P22,000 and in a week's time, they'll be back in Manila if they have work here. The reason people are in Manila is because they want to find work. Sure, there will be many takers, but how do you keep them in the provinces?" Fernando asked.