CEBU, Philippines – Former Leyte Vice Governor Aurelio Menzon Jr., yesterday sounded off the alarm that Eastern Visayas has fallen into the poorest region in the country, almost two years after Yolanda.
"The region is still crawling toward rehabilitation until now. It has been very slow. So we need to have a second look at Yolanda yonder," Menzon told The FREEMAN in an interview after he attended the recent national convention of lawyers in Cebu City.
"This plunge of Eastern Visayas into a poorest region is alarming considering that P147 billion in funds have been siphoned into the region by both the national government agencies and non-government organizations, both here and abroad," said Menzon, who is also a lawyer by profession.
"Where is this money now?" said Menzon, lamenting that instead of rising from the Yolanda devastation, the region and its people have fallen instead into a deeper mess. "What's wrong?"
The government and other donors have been distributing money to Yolanda victims, but then this may not be the right thing to do because this only destroys the people instead of helping them stand on their own via livelihood support, he said.
"Recently, I have visited public markets in Eastern Visayas and I was stunned to see very few fish sold. I learned later that fishermen no longer go fishing, after receiving money from agencies and NGOs.
The poor people in the region spent their money instead in drinking, gambling and other vices, and sex, he said. "These dole-outs have damaged the psyche of the people here. They become over-dependent on financial aid and lost the drive in working or striving to earn a decent income for their family,” he said.
Menzon, who also hosts the commentary program “Democracy in Action” over Tacloban-based DyVL radio, said: "Economic strategy and planning should be implemented, and not dole-outs which is ephemeral and drives people to get lazy, to go on gambling and drinking sprees, and worse, to produce babies.”
With “easy money,” the already drunken men either go for prostitutes or their wives for carnal pleasures. This reality has been confirmed by the doubling of birth rate in Region 8, since Yolanda, he said. "The danger now is no longer the storm surge but the sperm surge."
The rising number of newborns in the region has been documented by authorities, and this confirmed the reality that the post-Yolanda relief management (dole-outs) has been a skewed system and concept from the beginning.
The Yolanda victims had suffered much and the immediate money they received only caused a psychological shift to self-gratification that eventually destroyed them. “Vices and sex are perhaps their way of escaping from their depressing condition, thus giving them short-term money would only drive them further into these depths,” he said.
Menzon, a former commissioner of the National Labor Relations Commission in the Visayas, pushed instead for livelihood advocacy around the region, in which people shall be helped instead on getting employment or having income-generating enterprises.
Businesses have not fully recovered in the region and agriculture remained in ruins. Authorities should not use tragedies as breeding grounds for unjust enrichment at the expense of the people, said Menzon.
“The government should liberalize credit to more businessmen and entrepreneurs. Every local government should implement livelihood programs and training for their constituents, with less corruption and politics,” he said.
Business should flourish in every town and city in the region and government must be led by competent and honest officials who share the advocacy of putting the welfare of the people above all else, Menzon added.