CBCP flood relief lets evacuees identify their needs

MANILA, Philippines — The social arm of the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) has decided to take a new tack in cheering up the thousands of refugees from last week’s widespread flooding: scrapping the usual relief packages and letting them choose between cash or voucher to get what they really need.

“Distributing relief goods is a shotgun approach,” Fr. Edu Gariguez, executive secretary of the CBCP National Secretariat for Social Action (CBCP-Nassa), said on Sunday. “Sometimes you just go to an area without really knowing what the people need. You give them shampoo and toothpaste when they would rather receive more food such as rice,” Gariguez said by phone.

Under the new plan, according to Gariguez, each family in temporary shelters will be given cash or a voucher amounting to P2,000 or so and family members will choose the things they need from a store the CBCP-Nassa has tapped for the relief program.

If the refugees could not do the buying themselves, they could list down the things they needed and the diocese would do the shopping for them, Gariguez said.

He said the CBCP-Nassa was encouraging dioceses to use the system, which had been tested during recent calamities in the Bicol region.

Gariguez said the system was not really new. “Other countries are already using this scheme,” he said. “We just don’t do it here because we are more accustomed to packing relief goods whenever there is a calamity.”

The new system, however, is not intended to dissuade people from donating goods for relief during calamities, Gariguez said. Relief distribution remains an effective way of dealing with the urgent needs of calamity victims, he said.

In time, however, refugees’ needs would change, he said. “Later, others may want pots and pans. They may have food but they don’t have the means to cook them,” he explained.

Gariguez urged a continuing assessment of the needs of refugees from calamities for improvements in disaster response.

On Friday, Nassa-Caritas Philippines announced that it was using emergency fund from the Alay Kapwa charity, which has raised P2.38 million this year so far, to help people displaced by last week’s flooding.

The bulk of the fund, P850,000, will be used for initial financial support to the emergency relief of priority dioceses: San Fernando, Pampanga (P250,000); Antipolo, Rizal (P250,000); Iba, Zambales (P100,000); Alaminos, Pangasinan (P100,000) and San Pablo, Laguna (P100,000).

“The initial fund support is intended to augment the financial capacity of the dioceses to launch their relief operations,” Caritas said. “Other dioceses, which have more resources and can fully support their emergency operations, are encouraged to do so.”