One disaster after another

Christmas is just around the corner and the Yolanda survivors have yet to recover, more than a year after the tragedy that turned their lives upside down. According to the think-tank group IBON Foundation, there are still 1.3 million people that are homeless, finding shelter in evacuation centers, tents, bunkhouses and other makeshift dwelling. During the public hearing conducted last Thursday by the Senate committee on urban planning, housing and resettlement headed by Senator JV Ejercito, an undersecretary of rehabilitation czar Ping Lacson admitted that it will take three years before the government can deliver the 14,000-plus houses needed in Tacloban City alone. 

No doubt the condition of survivors are truly miserable – as they continue to suffer from one disaster after another due to the inadequacy (“insignificant” and “negligible” were the words used by government workers and volunteers) of the help they have been getting from the national government. Which is why a big question now for many people is where all that money supposedly allocated for post-Yolanda rehabilitation and reconstruction efforts went. As administration ally Senator Chiz Escudero said, he does not see the P173 billion allocated for 2013 and 2014.

Clearly, this is a situation where transparency should have been done to dispel suspicions that the funds intended to help the victims are being channeled elsewhere. Whatever the amount, the government owes it to the people to properly account for the funds given. In fact, a restaurant chain owner informed us that their foundation had donated P15 million in cash but they are wondering where and how the money was used. The foundation did not even get an acknowledgment receipt.

All the donors want is for some form of assurance that what was given – whether cash or goods – are being put to good use.  Which is why news about relief items getting spoiled and declared unfit for human consumption comes across as very disappointing – more so with the admission by Welfare Secretary Dinky Soliman that the goods got wet during shipment – which clearly is pure negligence, not to mention lack of foresight and carelessness on the part of the agency and its staff.

To be fair, the government did put up the Foreign Aid Transparency Hub or FAiTH – an online portal where information on the pledges and donations from international donors is posted. However, there is nothing in the website that tells donors and the public how the money has been or is being used. How can this be, when this is supposed to address the question of transparency and accountability that Malacanang was so emphatic about when it announced that FAiTH Version 2.0 will include the tracking of aid and assistance given to the national government?

It is very amusing that early on, Edwin Lacierda challenged private groups and organizations to be transparent with the donations channeled through them, saying they expect these groups to be accountable for the money given them by foreign donors and other people. We can’t really blame large companies who prefer to conduct rehabilitation projects on their own, perhaps out of mistrust for government agencies or the perception that the pace will be faster if they oversee the construction of houses and other projects themselves.

The president admitted that it was difficult tracking down the donations given to Yolanda survivors, saying the bulk of the funds went to non-government organizations. However, this pronouncement comes in stark contrast with a statement by Secretary Sonny Coloma that of the P199.48 billion from the international community in the form of loans, grants and donations for rescue, relief, rehabilitation and reconstruction efforts, almost P170 billion was coursed through various government agencies while only P30 billion was coursed through NGOs. Clearly, there is a disconnect.

COA must come in and refine its system of auditing to prevent the perception of inconsistency, like the time when it came out with a special report that P700 million in donations meant for Yolanda victims were unutilized. But apparently, some funds allocated for local government units were not transferred because the national government wanted a clear proposal on budget utilization – a situation reminiscent of a patient gasping for breath who is being required to give his name and other details before being admitted for emergency treatment.

In any case, many find it disconcerting to know that no one was monitoring the Yolanda funds as admitted earlier by Dinky Soliman and attested to by a report from Senator Chiz Escudero who said no single agency in government knows the total amount of the local and foreign donations for the victims of Yolanda.

If there is any major investigation that the Senate should really spend time and taxpayers money on, it is to look into this huge potential anomaly. We are talking about billions of pesos. It’s bad enough that the money comes from Filipino taxpayers, but it’s even worse when donations come from foreign governments and their citizens because the next time another disaster strikes and we ask for help from the international community again, they might not be as sympathetic or generous because of lingering suspicions that the funds were not used efficiently.

The Congressional fact-finding committee that recently went to Leyte should immediately enact a law that will establish an agency to handle all the international donations and act like a clearing house that would monitor the flow of funds – not just to record which country donated how much but to keep track of the amounts disbursed and who received them. We should never allow a major disaster like Yolanda to be a continuing disaster for the poor victims who have already suffered enough.

*      *      *

Email: [email protected]