PNoy meets with Cabinet over Yolanda rehab. President Benigno Aquino III presides over a meeting on Yolanda rehabilitation updates in Malacañang on Friday, May 16. Gil Nartea
President Benigno Aquino III on Friday ordered his Cabinet to hasten the completion of plans for the rehabilitation and reconstruction of areas affected by Typhoon Yolanda.
“President Aquino directed the Cabinet to act with an increased sense of urgency in finalizing the post-Yolanda rehabilitation plan, especially in view of the expected onset of the rainy season in June,” Presidential Communications Operations Office Herminio Coloma Jr. said in a statement issued after Aquino’s five-hour meeting with his Cabinet on Friday.
A joint congressional inquiry had earlier discovered that the government had yet to come up with a master plan to rehabilitate typhoon-hit areas, six years after the powerful cyclone hit the Visayas region.
Coloma said National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council executive director Alexander Pama presented during the Cabinet meeting a summary of the latest Post Disaster Needs Assessment (PDNA), which will be the basis for the master plan.
The PDNA, which assessed the total needs cost at P104.6 billion, covers four regions, 11 provinces, and Tacloban City.
Coloma explained that though the PDNA had been “approved in principle,” some aspects of the report were still being fine-tuned.
Rehabilitation czar Panfilo Lacson, meanwhile, told the President on Friday that rehabilitation plans for Tacloban City and Leyte, Western Samar, and Cebu provinces had been completed.
Coloma said that after a final review session, each Cabinet cluster will be asked to sign off on the plans so that full implementation will begin on all fronts on the President’s approval: resettlement, infrastructure, social services, and livelihood.
Earlier, a congressional inquiry revealed that only P4 billion of the P100 billion allotted in the 2014 budget by the government for the rehabilitation efforts had so far been released.
Coloma, however, said that this was just because the government was still completing its plans.
“We expect that the implementation will accelerate and will be done at a much faster pace ngayon na nabubuo na iyong mga plano,” he added.
Budget, housing
Budget Sec. Butch Abad reported that a total of P65 billion was still available for spending from the 2014 and 2013 budgets. Of this amount, he said that the Budget Department had released P32.2 billion pesos.
Aside from this, he said another P80 billion was available from concessional loans and grants given by the World Bank, Asian Development Bank, and Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA).
Also, Abad said P15 billion pesos had been received from foreign governments out of the more than P34 billion in pledges and commitments.
Coloma said Aquino had approved the recommendation to allow local government units to realign downloaded funds for other rehabilitation projects.
Also during Friday’s Cabinet meeting, Housing and Urban Development Coordinating Council Secretary General Cecilia Alba and National Housing Authority General Manager Chito Cruz reported to Aquino that since March 2014, construction had begun on a total of 2,844 new permanent housing units, with another 5,760 units expected to be contracted by June.
Also, a total of 214,367 new houses covering 1,301 hectares will be built until 2016.
They also said land acquisition and development are expected to accelerate after the President approved the allocation of funds for the acquisition of private lands through expropriation or direct purchase. — DVM, GMA News
