Tents will be temporary homes for affected Marawi families

The government will be providing family-sized tents to evacuees in Marawi City as the rehabilitation of the conflict-torn city has yet to start, the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) said on Thursday.

“We are preparing for it. We are procuring now family-sized tents. Actually, we have started the procurement three weeks ago in preparation for the return of our evacuees to Marawi City and we hope to provide individuals tents per families,” Social Welfare Secretary Judy Taguiwalo said in a Palace briefing.

“There can be immediately used rather than the emergency shelter assistance where you have to wait for the validation before you can have it,” she added.

She said the government would provide a tent for each of the 69,434 families now in evacuation centers.

The evacuees, she said, would be using the tents while the “physical construction” of Marawi City was ongoing.

FILE – Evacuees from Marawi City find safety in the town of Saguiaran in Lanao del Sur province, away from the fighting raging in their city since last month. —AFP

Each tent could accommodate a maximum of eight people and has windows for ventilation, she said.

Taguiwalo admitted that their first bidding failed but said the DSWD was prepared for it.

“Although, we have problems with the procurement because the bidding has failed as of yesterday but we’re still fast-tracking it. So we’re prepared for that,” she said.

“Emergency naman ito na situation ‘no. So we can adopt the appropriate procurement system na hindi kasing stringent kapag regular times,” she added.

Taguiwalo also said the Muslim evacuees also received P1,000 cash assistance so they could buy food after their Ramadan fasting, which would end on Monday. The cash assistance, she said, was aside from the food packs given by the DSWD.

As of June 6, Taguiwalo said the DSWD has received additional funds for assisting Marawi evacuees.

“I’m glad to tell you that the DBM (Department of Budget and Management) has downloaded P662,500,000 to the Department as of June 6,” she said.

She said the department has already spent P294 million worth of food and non-food assistance for evacuees including cash augmentation./ac