P150 B allotted for rehab of calamity areas – DBM

MANILA, Philippines - Amid reports of millions of pesos in unused calamity funds, the Department of Budget and Management (DBM) said a total of P150 billion has been allotted for the reconstruction of disaster-ravaged areas until 2017.

Of the amount, the DBM said P93.87 billion has been disbursed as of Oct. 23, and P10 billion has been set for release before the end of the month. The remaining P46 billion would be released once the 2016 budget is approved by year-end, Budget Secretary Florencio Abad told reporters in a briefing yesterday on the status of the rehabilitation and reconstruction of areas ravaged by Super Typhoon Yolanda.

“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 said.

“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.

The Commission on Audit (COA) has found a total of P384 million in calamity donations to Office of Civil Defense (OCD) unused, the biggest chunk of which – amounting to P137 million – represented donations for the victims of Yolanda in 2013.

Learning from experience after Yolanda, the government is studying how to fast-track the procurement process to ensure calamity funds are disbursed swiftly, officials said yesterday.

“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 the usual procurement processes to take place,” Abad said.

He called Yolanda the “strongest typhoon to hit Earth.” Yolanda made landfall in Eastern Visayas on Nov. 8, 2013 destroying homes and crops and killing more than 6,000 people.

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

Pama said agencies would have to wait for three months to finish the entire procurement processes laid out under Republic Act No. 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 No. 9184,” he explained. – With Christina Mendez, Helen Flores, Non Alquitran, Alexis Romero