Abad: Lacson’s claim on ‘Yolanda’ rehab funds not true

Former Budget Secretary Florencio Abad on Friday took exception to Sen. Panfilo Lacson’s comments criticizing the Aquino administration’s lack of funding support for projects to rehabilitate areas destroyed by Supertyphoon “Yolanda” (international name: Haiyan) in 2013.

Abad said it was not true, as Lacson claimed, that the Department of Budget and Management (DBM) under his leadership gave “very little budget support” for Yolanda survivors in Eastern Visayas.

“While it may be true that Yolanda rehabilitation and reconstruction wasn’t as fast as we would have liked it to be, I wish to point out that the slowdown was not due to lack of funds,” he said in a Nov. 8 letter to the Inquirer.

“It is not true that the DBM refused to release funds to the agencies or that the department, ‘released funds in piecemeal or trickles,’” said Abad.

The former budget chief said the DBM was able to release at least P105 billion.