MORE than 200,000 survivors from Regions 6 and 8 never received assistance from the government nearly three years after Super Typhoon “Yolanda” struck the country, Social Welfare Secretary Judy Taguiwalo said Monday after initiating an internal assessment of donations given to the department during the previous administration.
“We have done an assessment of the “Yolanda” donations and we are going to make that report… on or around Nov. 8. This was something… the people themselves [requested] when we first came into office last July,” Taguiwalo said in a Palace press briefing.
“So, many farmers, fisherfolk talked to us and asked us about their emergency shelter assistance, three years after “Yolanda.” So, we decided to have an internal assessment of the donations given to the DSWD as well as other funding,” she added.
Taguiwalo, who earlier ordered the release of P5,000 in emergency shelter assistance (ESA) to each poor family affected by the twin super typhoons, said that there might be irregularities on how the ESA funds were spent in the Aquino administration.
“Our team is [working on] a more detailed report. Our main problem with “Yolanda” is while we have provided more than P1 million in emergency shelter assistance to the victims, there are around 200,000 claimants who [said] they were victims of “Yolanda” in Region 8 and Region 6 but they were not given the assistance needed. That’s why here [with] “Lawin,” we said, emergency shelter assistance should be emergency, not three years, not two years after.”
The Foreign Aid Transparency Hub (FAiTH) website earlier said the Philippine government received P1.202 billion in cash donations and another P1.269 billion in non-cash donations after the typhoon.
“Generally the money has gone to the people but there are cases of irregularities,” Taguiwalo said, noting that some of the irregularities include delays in the release of the emergency assistance to typhoon victims.
In some of the cases, she said some typhoon victims were not relocated due to the prohibition on giving assistance to residents living in danger zones.
Some victims had also failed to receive assistance because they were not part of political groupings in some local government units.
“The money has gone to the people but there are cases of irregularities or non-compliance… The exclusion of emergency shelter assistance is widespread,” she added.
Taguiwalo said she doesn’t want a repeat of the “Yolanda” experience, in which the DSWD was heavily criticized for the apparent lack of preparation and support for victims after the typhoon.
“We are doing our best so that the “Yolanda” experience in terms of delayed provision of emergency assistance should not be repeated,” Taguiwalo said.
“We don’t want any form of irregularity or corruption, and the President was very clear about it,” she added.
