Execs in charge of Marawi rebuilding told door closing on P4.4B in funds

The interagency Task Force Bangon Marawi has only this year to use funds allotted to rebuilding war-torn Muslim city before the door closes on some P4 billion in unreleased money, the Deoartment of Budget (DBM) said.

“The Task Force has to act to access the funds already earmarked for Marawi rehabilitation and reconstruction projects,” acting Budget Secretary Wendel E. Avisado told the Inquirer on Thursday, Nov. 7.

It was learned during a meeting of the House subcommittee on Marawi rehabilitation last Tuesday, Nov. 5, that P4.4 billion of the P10 billion allocated in the 2018 national budget for Marawi City’s rehabilitation will already expire by yearend as they remain unreleased despite the two-year validity of these funds.

At the hearing, legislators noted that only P5.5 billion in special allotment release orders (Saros) had been released by the DBM as of end-October.

Data on the DBM’s website showed that at end-September, only P554.5 million out of the P5.1 billion included in the 2018 National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Fund (NDRRMF) for the Marawi Recovery, Rehabilitation and Reconstruction Program (MRRRP) had been released.

Among the releases, P67.1 million went to the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) through the Department of National Defense (DND); P2.3 million to the National Youth Commission (NYC); P213.4 million to the National Electrification Administration (NEA); P244.9 million to the Department of Health (DOH); and P26.9 million to the Presidential Communications Operations Office (PCOO).

Of the remaining balance of P4.4 billion, over P4 billion had already been earmarked for MRRRP-related projects to be implemented by seberal deoartments and agencies.

As such, there remained a balance of P547.3 million that has yet to be released but not earmarked for MRRRP under the 2018 NDRRMF./TSB