THE incidence of poverty has worsened to 54.9 percent three years since the devastation of Super Typhoon “Yolanda,” with thousands of survivors still homeless and hungry due to the continued neglect by the government, the opposition United Nationalist Alliance said Thursday.
On a campaign stop in Borongang, Eastern Samar, UNA presidential candidate Vice President Jejomar Binay vowed that if he were elected, he would complete the construction of almost 190,000 houses for Yolanda victims in a year.
Referring to the delays in the Aquino administration’s use of aid earmarked for storm victims, Binay said poverty could easily worsen in a calamity-hit area if the government does not move fast to help the people.
Government data show that 14 provinces in the Visayas are in need of 205,128 housing units.
Of these, only 17,641 units were built as of October 2015. The government expects to complete another 92,554 units by December 2016.
But UNA said the Commission on Audit’s own report showed that more than P364 million in local and foreign donations for victims of several typhoons and an earthquake during the last six years are still in the bank account of the Office of the Civil Defense.
The same audit report said that as of December 2014, the OCD spent only P81.068 million in donations for various calamities since 2008.
The agency said the biggest chunk of donations was the P137 million received from government agencies and other sources after Yolanda devastated large areas of Eastern Visayas.
Out of the Yolanda contributions, however, only P38.755 million was released, as of the end of 2014, leaving P98.24 million untouched and deposited in a trust account with the Development Bank of the Philippines.
“It is not acceptable to see typhoon victims to wait several years from the government to have their own house. I will stop this kind of practice,” Binay said.
Binay vowed there would be no delays in the release of calamity funds under his administration.
He issued his remarks after the Department of Budget and Management announced the release of P2.25 billion for Bottom Up Budgeting (BUB) projects in the Eastern Visayas one month before the 2016 national elections.
Also on Thursday, vice presidential candidate Senator Francis Escudero criticized the Social Welfare department under President Benigno Aquino III for imposing conditions on aid to Yolanda victims.
Instead of including them in the government’s 4Ps dole program, the government made typhoon survivors go through a cash-for-work program that had them lifting bodies of the dead and clearing roads of trash.
If he and his running mate Senator Grace Poe are elected, Escudero said, they would provide unconditional and swift distribution of government aid to victims of calamity.
“If you were battered by a typhoon, the help that should be given by the government should be unconditional cash transfer,” said Escudero.
He also hit the administration for using the conditional cash transfer or 4Ps program as a campaign fund, and warning the poor that it would be discontinued if the administration candidate did not win.
“They do not own the 4Ps. That did not come from their own pockets. It came from the taxes we are paying. We will continue the 4Ps and even widened it,” Escudero said.
The CCT program gives out a monthly stipend of up to P1,400 to each family beneficiary provided their children regularly attend school and the mothers, if pregnant, seek pre- and post-natal care, as part of government’s efforts to improve the health, nutrition and education of children from the poorest sector of society.
On Thursday, the Caritas Switzerland chief delegate to the Philippines, Marcel Reymond, said the Catholic charity had turned over the Malbago Elementary School, one of seven disaster-resistant schools under its school rehabilitation program that can also serve as evacutation centers.
“The rehabilitated school will serve as evacuation area if a heavy typhoon or other calamity strikes the area. Disaster risk reduction and mitigation strategies are an integral part of the rehabilitation program,” Reymond said.
“In times of evacuation, the multipurpose blackboards can be used as separation wall inside the classrooms to provide more privacy for evacuees. During regular times they are used as shelves and for teaching,” he said. There is also a retrofitted computer room and principal’s office, a small canteen, a new perimeter fence, features to facilitate access for people with disabilities, a stage, and improved water and sanitation facilities. The school, which is estimated to cost about P23.96 million, also employed 65 skilled and unskilled workers from the community who were instructed in disaster-resilient contstruction techniques. With Sara Susanne D. Fabunan