Politicians should get out of rehab’s way

ON DISTANT SHORE
By Val G. Abelgas

More than a year since super typhoon Yolanda brought death, destruction and deprivation to Leyte and other provinces in Eastern Visayas, nobody still knows for sure how many died, the destruction remains very visible, and the victims continue to be deprived of food, shelter and jobs.

And all because more than a year since the world’s strongest recorded typhoon struck the country, politics continue to rear its ugly head in the rehabilitation efforts in the region.

Partisan and vindictive politics was evident right on the first few days after the super howler struck when Interior Secretary Mar Roxas, after failing to convince Tacloban City Mayor Alfred Romualdez to sign a document allowing the national government to take over the city’s functions, infamously said: “You have to understand you are a Romualdez and the President is an Aquino so we just want to legalize. If not legalized, well okay. You are in charge. We can’t help you. Bahala ka na sa buhay n’yo!”

One year hence, the remark explains, in no uncertain terms, why not much has been done to alleviate the sufferings of the devastated people of Tacloban, which was the worst hit by Yolanda and widely considered as the disaster’s Ground Zero, despite cash donations totaling P45 billion and non-cash donations amounting to P28 billion coming from all over the world and a $500-million emergency assistance loan from the World Bank.

President Aquino, who since giving away bottles of water to the victims a few days after the typhoon has not returned to Ground Zero, made the Tacloban snub even more evident when during the first anniversary commemoration of the tragedy last Saturday, he visited Guiuan in Eastern Samar, the home province of Arroyo apologist-turned Aquino apologist Rep. Ben Evardonne; Palawan, Cebu and Aklan, and skipped Tacloban City.

Politics’ ugly head became even more evident when during a talk to reporters, Aquino said he was considering closing the Daniel Romualdez Airport in Tacloban, which is currently undergoing rehabilitation, and building a new one that would cost P12 billion in Palo, Leyte, hometown of Energy Secretary and fellow Liberal Party stalwart Jericho Petilla. The plan would basically shift the center of commerce to Palo from the provincial capital Tacloban, where the Romualdezes have reigned for decades.

Mayor Alfred Romualdez also suspects that the Aquino government plans to stop the widening of the Romualdez Airport tarmac to prevent Pope Francis from visiting Tacloban in January since the current tarmac cannot accommodate wide-bodied airplanes.
It took all of 10 months before Aquino approved a comprehensive rehabilitation plan for Leyte and other affected provinces. With the accelerating verbal exchanges between the Romualdezes and the Marcoses, on one hand, and the Aquino officials, on the other, many are still doubtful if the rehabilitation plan could be fully implemented before the end of Aquino’s term in 2016.

This despite pronouncements by Communications Secretary Sonny Coloma that based on the timeline for the implementation of the Comprehensive Rehabilitation and Recovery Plan, 30 percent of all the projects will be completed this year, 50 percent next year, and 20 percent in 2016. The Aquino administration is, after all, not known for meeting targets.
In the meantime, the people of Tacloban are becoming impatient. But who wouldn’t at the rate rehabilitation is being implemented.

In the first place, billions of pesos have already been turned over by foreign governments and other international donors to the country for the relief and recovery of the affected areas, not to mention the $500 million emergency loan granted by the World Bank. But nobody seems to know where all the money went.

Among the biggest donors to Yolanda survivors are Japan (P27.9 billion), United Kingdom (P11.8 billion), United States (P4 billion), Germany (P10 billion), Australia (P4.5 billion), Canada (P1.7 billion), Norway (P1.5 billion), and European Union (P1.2 billion).

With all that money, you would think Tacloban and the other devastated areas would have been up and running by now, or at least well on their way to recovery.

For one, the government cannot even account for the number of deaths in the disaster after one year. Nobody has been keeping official count since the number reached 4,000 obviously because if the death toll reached 10,000 it would be a slap in the face of the President, who fired a Tacloban police official for insisting that the fatalities could reach 10,000 after Aquino had said only a few thousands had died.

When unofficial tally from those in the field stopped, about 7,000 had already been recovered and many more bodies kept cropping up until a couple of weeks ago. And simply because it would embarrass the President, we may never really know how many died in that tragic disaster.

In the first few weeks of the disaster, relief came in trickles for the hungry, thirsty and grief-stricken survivors. It was found out later that thousands of bags of relief goods from foreign donors were stored in warehouses of the Department of Social Welfare and Development, being repacked in DSWD-marked bags. Obviously, it took several days to unpack and repack, not to mention several thousand man-hours lost just so the DSWD could take credit for the relief goods.

It was later found out that thousands of tons of relief goods had become rotten in DSWD warehouses and had to be thrown away. Worse, it was later revealed that some of the donations had found their way to stores in Metro Manila.

DSWD Secretary Dinky Soliman couldn’t even be honest with her reporting, typhoon survivors say. She claimed last week that all refugees displaced by Yolanda have been moved out of tent cities and evacuation centers to temporary shelters. On the same day that Soliman made the claim, residents of barangay San Jose in Tacloban were photographed milling around their community of tents near the coastline.

Those that have been given shelter got theirs not from the government, but from the private sector like the Philippine National Red Cross, which in cooperation with the International Federation of Red Cross, the Red Crescent and the International Committee of the Red Cross, has been working in the devastated areas.

According to the Red Cross, almost 6,100 houses have been rebuilt and in the next 15 months, 40,000 families will have received safer homes. More than 23,000 households have also received roofing sheets to repair their homes. A total of 192 classrooms have been repaired or rebuilt so far and rural health facilities are also being restored.

At least 30,000 households have so far received cash grants of up to $220 as part of the Philippine Red Cross’s three-year $360 million recovery plan which will support 500,000 people across Leyte, Samar, Cebu, Panay and Palawan islands.

Perhaps, the rehabilitation program would be better off if handled by private organizations like the Red Cross. Then maybe, politics would go away and allow the people of Leyte to get back on the road to recovery that they richly deserve.

(valabelgas@aol.com)