Palace to launch website for foreign donations

MANILA, Philippines - President Aquino has instructed his communications group to put up a website where the public can check how much funds were given by foreign donors in the aftermath of Super Typhoon Yolanda and where the funds went.

“In a week’s time, we will be launching it. They are already preparing it. The President wants to see how much the national government has received in donations,” deputy presidential spokesperson Abigail Valte told reporters yesterday.

The Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) is in the process of “preparing the matrix” for the detailed posting of donations – whether in cash, kind, equipment or humanitarian teams.

“We have been updating this. It’s available on the Official Gazette website and we invite everybody to look at it to see the type of assistance that is being given,” she said.

The Palace said this website will hopefully address queries on “how much of the aid has been coursed through government agencies, who are the accountable persons and who are the accountable agencies.”

The portal will also make sure where the funds will be funneled and the “status of deployment of the aid.”

“The President was categorical, he wants these details up. A team is already working on that as we speak,” Valte said. “However, we did check with Bureau of Internal Revenue Commissioner (Kim) Henares because of several questions about donor’s tax, VAT, etc. This prompted her to actually ask the Bureau of Treasury if any donation in cash has been received. So far, there’s none,” Valte said.

43 donors

Forty-three international donors have pledged or have sent assistance to the Philippines amid the tragedy brought by Yolanda, the DFA said yesterday.

The latest number of international donors monitored by the DFA as of noon yesterday brought the current estimated value of international assistance to P5.4 billion or US$126.8 million.

DFA spokesperson Raul Hernandez said this amount accounts only for those donations to which the donors assigned a monetary value and that pledges of financial aid have to be processed in accordance with the rules and regulations of the donors before the funds reach the recipients.  

“You might have also noticed that some pledges which were already announced in the media are not reflected in our list. As previously explained, the DFA, as the focal point on international assistance, is focusing on coordinating initial contact with foreign governments and international organizations intending to render humanitarian assistance and disaster response efforts,” Hernandez said.

Japan, Germany hike aid

Japan yesterday said it was tripling its emergency aid package for typhoon victims in the Philippines to $30 million as Tokyo prepares to send as many as 1,000 troops here.

Germany also announced yesterday an increase in the emergency aid for Yolanda victims to 4.5 million euros (P263 million).

The German government earlier provided 1.5 million euros in aid for the Philippines.

The Singapore Armed Forces (SAF), for its part, delivered the second tranche of relief supplies worth S$120,000 to Cebu yesterday afternoon through a second Republic of Singapore Air Force (RSAF) C-130 aircraft. – Delon Porcalla,Alexis Romero, Pia Lee-Brago, Dino Balabo