EDITORIAL - Delayed

As per a Commission on Audit report, the housing project for victims of Super Typhoon Yolanda in Pilar town on Camotes Island is still not finished even after several years.

COA said the construction of 406 Yolanda Permanent Housing Units in Pilar with a ?191.269-million contract funded by the National Housing Authority (NHA) was delayed due to poor planning, detailed engineering, supervision, and monitoring.

In 2017, the local government of Pilar and the NHA entered into an agreement to build 660 housing units in the town for victims of Super Typhoon Yolanda, with each unit costing ?290,000 each.

However, the municipality requested the NHA to adjust the price of each housing unit to ?471,107.09 based on the current price of materials to be used. The agreement was changed on February 2019 through an amendment to the MOA, which reduced the number of housing units to 406 with a total budget of ?191.269 million.

Changes and revisions eventually led to delays.

In case anyone forgot, Super Typhoon Yolanda happened in 2013, more than 10 years ago already. The building of the housing project should have begun sooner, but it was only in 2017 when an agreement was made, four years past already.

Now 12 years have passed since the typhoon, and the housing project is still not even done yet. Could it be safe to say some of the intended beneficiaries don’t need those homes anymore, tired of waiting for government help that usually arrives too late or when it’s no longer needed?

This might just be a COA report, but it’s also proof of how slow the bureaucracy can move in this country.

It’s easy to say off the bat that some people are irresponsible, but we are also aware of how long the normal process of government bureaucracy takes. This goes without saying the system itself has to be streamlined to make things like building a housing project quick, especially for those left homeless by something beyond their control like a natural disaster.

Because we are sure there will be other events that will leave many taxpayers homeless and in need of shelter every now and then.