TACLOBAN CITY, Philippines – A total of P7,189,579,934.25 in fund for the Emergency Shelter Assistance has been fully disbursed to the local government units in Eastern Visayas, according to Vina Aquino of the Department of Social Work and Development-8 in a press conference.
Aquino however said that, among all the LGUs, only the towns of Barugo in Leyte, Marabut in Samar and Giporlos in Eastern Samar have yet to receive their last tranche of the fund, pending compliance of the requirements for fund release, as set by the Commission on Audit and the undertaking with the DSWD.
“The partial release to these municipalities was upon their request and the full amount will be released to them upon submission of the liquidation of the partial amount already released,” Aquino clarified.
Tacloban City, which received P1 billion, but also in staggered releases, half of which was yet to be disbursed by the DSWD, pending liquidation of the first amount released, she said.
Michelle Calzado, Pantawid Pamilya program regional information officer, said that of the 4,917 total household beneficiaries of ESA in the second batch, the DSWD-8 has paid out P30,000 to each of the 3,830 with totally damaged houses, and P10,000 each to those with partially damaged houses.
From November last year to January this year, a total of 1,357 household beneficiaries were given ESA, 984 of them had totally damaged houses.
In both the first and second batches, same set of guidelines were used in the release of the ESA. “We call on all the Pantawid Pamilya beneficiaries, who are recipients of the ESA, to coordinate with the assigned local government unit links for the schedule of release,” Calzado said.
Aquino, in a rejoinder to issues on delay of release of ESA to the beneficiaries, said most of the problems were the regulations imposed by the LGUs, which are the implementers of the ESA distribution.
Mayor Lesmes Lumen of La Paz, Leyte, one of the towns affected by super typhoon Yolanda, carried out a strategy on how to ease up the procedure in the implementation of ESA distribution. “We do not want to implement the ESA distribution without first complying with the requirements, so we strategized on how to systematize the distribution to the 35 barangays,” he said.
“The ESA program is essentially good for Yolanda victims, but the problem is in the delay of the downloading of the fund to us. We expected that this would be implemented in the first six months after the onslaught of the typhoon when many houses yet need repair, but unfortunately the amount was just downloaded on July 13 to us,” Lumen said.
The mayor said the ESA will be ready for distribution this week to at least five barangays per releases. “We do not care how the beneficiaries would use the ESA they will receive because this is just a reimbursement. What we require from them is to submit summary of distribution,” he said.
Gina Manongas, a Pantawid Pamilya beneficiary at Barangay Utap in Tacloban City, admitted there were families in her village who used the excess of their ESA to fund their livelihood. She did not think anything wrong in using the ESA for purpose other than the improvement of the beneficiary’s home as the ESA is mere reimbursement.