SENATE President ProTempore Ralph Recto said Monday there was no need for a supplemental budget because the Bangon Marawi fund to rebuild the city could be included in the national budget for 2018.
He said the money proposed in the 2018 national budget for Marawi’s reconstruction was P10 billion.
“The question is, is this enough?” Recto said.
“How much from the P25.5-billion Calamity Fund for 2017 was used for Marawi? They should now run the numbers so we will know if the P10 billion is enough.”
Recto made his statement even as former vice president Jejomar Binay on Monday asked the government to include in its rehabilitation program the distribution of lots inside a military reservation in Marawi City to their occupants.
In his letter to Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana, Binay cited a petition from several residents of Marawi City who had been living within a military reservation which he received when he was chairman of the Housing and Urban Development Coordinating Council.”©
“These residents had requested the agency’s help in transferring to them the ownership of the lots they occupy. Sadly, the change in administration precluded any further action on their request.”
Meanwhile, some 200 farmers and fishermen from the Caraga region who are now on their second week of protest in Mendiola, Manila, on Monday asked President Rodrigo Duterte to listen to their demands, which include stopping the military operations in Caraga.
“We will not go home until we talk to President Duterte,” said Roger Montero, chairman of KMP-Caraga.
“It would only take a few minutes of his time to see us here in Mendiola and hear our concerns. Farmers, indigenous peoples and national minorities are coming to the National Capital Region because our long-standing demands for land, livelihood and peace in our communities have been neglected by President Duterte.”
Monterey said Malacañang could not continue to give them the cold-shoulder.
Recto called on the executive officials tasked to plan and implement Marawi’s reconstruction to submit a budget to Congress before the two chambers wrap up work on the P3.767-trillion 2018 national budget by the first week of December.
He said those drafting the Bangon Marawi blueprint should take these into consideration.
“Let us always keep in mind that Marawi is the capital of the province where Lanao Lake is, which is the source of about a third of Mindanao’s power supply,” Recto said.
“It is also where the main campus of the Mindanao State University is located, Recto said, referring to the “UP of the South” which has produced thousands of graduates since its founding in 1961.
“Marawi is both a source of light and enlightenment. Thus any aid package should be viewed within that context. To a large extent, the aid we will be giving is some sort of a payback,” Recto said.
He said the Agus River, which flows through Marawi, “is the gateway through which waters that run hydropower plants downstream pass.”
Six hydroelectric plants cascade from the mouth of the lake in the city. The plants have a combined installed capacity of 728 megawatts of clean and cheap energy.
“For 70 years, the people of Lanao Del Sur have been good stewards of the watershed that feeds the lake, which in turn provides the water for the hydroelectric plants that supply the whole of the island of electricity,” Recto said.
“There was a time when Lanao Lake was the only source of power. It lighted homes and the future of Mindanaoans.” With Vito Barcelo, Joel E. Zurbano and Bill Casas
