‘Foreign disaster aid welcome if without conditions’

MANILA, Philippines - Social Welfare Secretary Judy Taguiwalo yesterday said the country survived typhoons Karen and Lawin without foreign aid.

Taguiwalo clarified her stance on accepting donations and assistance from the private sector and foreign institutions, saying foreign aid is welcome as long as this does not come with “conditions.”

She said the government has enough funds for relief and rehabilitation efforts.

Sen. Ralph Recto said the government has unspent P37 billion in calamity funds as of August this year, which could be used to help the typhoon victims.

Recto said the fund – officially known as the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Fund – came from unused appropriations last year as well as the current year.

For 2015, P14 billion was appropriated for the fund, of which P5 billion remained unused as of December.

The remaining amount was added to the 2016 appropriation of P38.9 billion, raising the fund to P44 billion.

Withdrawals as of end-August amounted to P6.9 billion, leaving a balance of P37 billion.

“The challenge is to open the floodgates of domestic aid funds and not to ask help from abroad,” Recto said.

The typhoons destroyed some P10.2 billion worth of agricultural crops and displaced more than 200,000 families in Cagayan Valley, the Cordilleras, Central Luzon and Ilocos region.

Taguiwalo said the agency continues to distribute relief assistance to the victims. She said the government would continue to provide emergency shelter assistance to the affected families in the next days.

“Emergency shelter assistance should be (treated as) emergency. (It should) not (be given) three years or two years after. So we are doing our best to make sure that the Yolanda experience in terms of delayed provision of emergency shelter assistance would not be repeated,” Taguiwalo said in yesterday’s briefing at Malacañang.

The Department of Social Welfare and Development chief gave assurance that the DSWD would monitor the expiry dates of relief goods.

Agriculture Secretary Emmanuel Piñol said President Duterte has instructed him to study the possibility of restructuring the planting calendar in relation to the effects of climate change.

The President wanted to know if the planting period could be adjusted so farmers can harvest crops before the typhoon season.

He wanted a deeper study on the management of the Cagayan and Chico rivers, which overflowed and destroyed more than P8 billion worth of crops, and proposed dredging and desiltation.

“I was baffled initially because of the great disparity between the loss of lives and the damage to agriculture. There was so much damage to agriculture and minimal to life. The government was prepared for this. The only reason why there was so much damage to agriculture was because we could not relocate the palay, we could not relocate the corn fields,” Piñol said.

As of yesterday morning, Taguiwalo said the Cordilleras posted the most number of affected families, who are still in evacuation centers.

The Cordillera Administrative Region (CAR) recorded 66,875 affected families; Cagayan Valley has 59,319; Ilocos, 52,655, and Central Luzon, 32,419.

Except for the Cordilleras, evacuation centers in all three regions have been vacated as the families have returned home.

The families were given P5,000 each in initial assistance so they could buy materials to repair their houses.

Taguiwalo promised a total of P30,000 in assistance to those whose houses were destroyed.

Piñol said the government would provide immediate and long-term interventions for the affected communities, including the food-for-work program so people can earn a living while recovering from their losses.

He said the administration is looking into changing the crop insurance system from actual damage to index loses.

Verifying more fatalities

The National Disater Risk Reduction and Management Council is validating reports that 17 more persons died from landslides during the onslaught of Lawin in the Cordilleras.

The NDRRMC has so far placed the total number of fatalities at eight.

CAR disaster officials reported that the number of Lawin-related fatalities has increased as rescue teams were able to penetrate areas isolated by mudslides in Kalinga, Apayao, Abra and Ifugao.

Several areas in the region remain without power as the typhoon knocked down power lines and posts. – With Jaime Laude, Helen Flores, Marvin Sy, Paolo Romero