CEBU CITY, Philippines—Eighty-five down. Around a thousand more to go.
The Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG) has approved a total of 85 programs of work out of 1,066 that need to be approved for the rehabilitation of government infrastructure destroyed by last year’s 7.2-magnitude quake in Bohol province.
Local government units in Bohol were given until Dec. 15 to submit their programs of work.
The slow pace of rehabilitation in Bohol has been blamed on the lack of engineers who will study the plans being submitted by local executives in the province.
Ananias Villacorta, Central Visayas director of the DILG, said 20 more engineers were hired by the Department of Public Works and Highways to help review rehabilitation plans being submitted by local governments in Bohol.
Villacorta said that as a result of the hiring of additional engineers, programs of work were now being approved faster.
As of Nov. 4, the DILG official said, 85 programs of work had been approved. Out of these, he said, 66 were issued certificates of fund availability by the provincial government of Bohol. The contracts for these programs, he said, were being processed.
In Sagbayan town, Felito Pon, municipal disaster risk reduction and management office chief, said the town was now bidding out contracts to build a gym and a public market after it received a certificate of fund availability.
Pon said the projects might be completed by early next year.
Local Government Secretary Mar Roxas, during his visit to Bohol on Oct. 15, scolded mayors after learning that no single rehabilitation work had been started despite the DILG releasing P2.4 billion in funds on June 6.
The mayors pointed to their lack of technical expertise in producing programs of work involving infrastructure.
Roxas ordered the hiring of more engineers to help the mayors produce programs of work.