Gov't eyes quick fund disbursements during disasters

MANILA, Philippines - Learning from the experiences during Typhoon Yolanda, the government is studying how to fast track the procurement process to ensure state funds are disbursed swiftly in time of calamities, officials said on Thursday.

“We are really looking at designing a procurement policy that is applicable in times of calamity, particularly in terms of relief operations because we do not have time to wait for usual procurement processes to take place,” Budget Secretary Florencio Abad told reporters in a briefing.

The Aquino administration on Thursday reported on the progress of the rehabilitation and reconstruction of affected communities by Typhoon Yolanda. Dubbed by Abad as the “strongest typhoon to hit Earth,” Yolanda devastated southern Philippines in Nov. 8, 2013.

While the government immediately mobilized funds for rehabilitation, Undersecretary Alexander Pama of the Office of Civil Defense (OCD) said state agencies were not able to access these funds because of strict procurement processes.

At the minimum, Pama said agencies would have to wait for three months to finish the entire procurement processes laid out under Republic Act 9184 or the Government Procurement Reform Act.

“There are a lot of existing laws in the implementation of our national disaster risk reduction system that hinders us,” he said in the same briefing.

“For example, procurement processes in ordinary times are being used in an emergency situation. The thing is once the program gets running, we are already covered by RA 9184,” he explained.

To remedy the situation, Pama said the government has drafted a bill containing amendments to the law. “We are on the final look on it and it should be ready for submission to Congress,” he added.

A total of P150 billion has been allotted for the reconstruction efforts until 2017. The Department of Budget and Management (DBM) said P93.87 billion of that has already been disbursed as of October 23.

Around P10 billion will be released before the month’s end, while the remaining P46 billion will be ready for release once the 2016 budget is approved by year-end, Abad pointed out.

“We have requested the agencies to fully disaggregate their budget and to begin their procurement now so that from Day One, as soon as the budget is approved, they can easily issue the notice of award,” the budget chief relayed.

“The P46 billion will be automatically released to the agencies once the budget is approved without the need to go to the DBM for statement of allotment orders,” he added.

A total of P384 million in calamity donations to OCD were found unused by the Commission on Audit, the biggest chunk of which — amounting to P137 million — were donations for the victims of Yolanda in 2013.

In response, Pama said the OCD is now working on deploying the unused funds since they are already obligated. An obligation means public funds have already been made available for specific public projects or programs.

For his part, Arsenio Balisacan, director-general of the National Economic and Development Authority, said Yolanda has allowed the government to identify policy gaps which he said is now being addressed.

“We are revisiting our National Disaster Risk Reduction Act (RA 10121) to include the lessons that we learned, the policies we need to change, the areas of coordination between state agencies,” Balisacan said.

“That should speed up our capacity to respond to disasters,” he added.