Manila: Philippine President Benigno Aquino’s government has been accused of withholding billions in typhoon relief funds, with the aim of releasing them just before elections.
The billions that President Benigno Aquino approved for the rehabilitation of 14 provinces that were devastated by Typhoon Haiyan in late 2013, including millions of aid from foreign agencies and Filipinos worldwide will be released and spent fast “to get votes in the 2016 elections”, critics of the administration said.
“There was a shortfall in the scheduled release of a total of $3.2 billion [Dh13.98 billion or P167.8 billion] rehabilitation budget that I proposed and was approved by the president in late 2013,” former Senator Panfilo Lacson, who resigned in late 2014 as presidential adviser on the recovery of areas devastated by Typhoon Haiyan, told Gulf News.
The budget department has released only $1.86 billion (Dh6.9 billion) as of 2014, or a shortfall of $1.02 (Dh3.83 billion) before end of 2015, said Social Watch which started monitoring government expenditure for the rehabilitation of central Philippines after Lacson’s resignation.
Aquino’s approved budget envisioned three tranches — $1.11 billion to be released in 2014, $1.77 billion in 2015 and $777 million in 2016, Lacson said.
The statement by Chaloka Beyani, United Nations Special rapporteur on the human rights of internally displaced persons in late July, that the Philippine government’s rehabilitation projects for typhoon-washed people remained inadequate was “an understatement,” said Lacson.
If the money was released on time, since there were reported savings from line agencies, the rehabilitation work in central Philippines should have been 70 per cent completed in 2015, opposition politicians said.
“Spending these funds now [in the lead-up to 2016] may open the government to charges of using them to win votes in the coming presidential election,” an editorial of Manila Bulletin said.
At the same time, the department of social welfare was also urged to spend a total of $16.44 million foreign aid that was received by the Philippine government as of December 2013. The money remained in the bank accounts of the social welfare department, the Commission on Audit said.
The money comprises $15 million in foreign aid and $1.5 million from Filipinos worldwide.
But a low figure of $84,444 was spent for aid in eastern central Philippines as of September 2014, the Commission said.
In response, Welfare Secretary Corazon Soliman said that 70 per cent of the 2,000 families that are still in bunkhouses and palm-thatched huts will be resettled by the end of this year. She blamed high real estate prices and local governments’ non-payment of utility bills for delays in government projects.
“Attention and resources appear to be waning before durable solutions are achieved and some internally displaced people remain in dire situations,” Beyani said earlier,
Typhoon Haiyan left 6,300 people dead, 1,000 missing and 4.2 million displaced in central Philippines on November 8, 2013.
