Communications Secretary Martin Andanar INQUIRER FILE / NINO JESUS ORBETA
The snail-paced “Yolanda” rehabilitation should not be repeated in the rebuilding of war-torn Marawi City, Communications Secretary Martin Andanar said on Tuesday.
“Kailangan po ay hindi na maulit iyong nangyari sa Yolanda and I’m very sure by the looks of it and how things are turning out to be, mabilis po iyong pagpapagawa ng mga bahay… the Yolanda experience will not happen again,” Andanar said in a radio RMN interview.
He said the Task Force Bangon Marawi has been “very active in making everything work for our Maranao brothers and sisters.”
For 2017, the government has allocated P5 billion for the rehabilitation of Marawi City.
“Nagsimula na po iyong rehabilitasyon, kanya-kanyang mga departamento na nagsipuntahan na po sa Marawi. We are very active and the Task Force Bangon Marawi, we’ve met already. Every now and then we meet,” Andanar said.
In his visit in Tacloban City in January, President Rodrigo Duterte was unhappy over the slow transfer of families displaced by super typhoon Yolanda.
Andanar said that would not happen in Marawi City.
“I think nakikita n’yo naman ngayon, nagawa na iyong mga… iyong mga temporary shelters ay napakabilis nung paggawa. One day lang po tapos na iyong isa. By December, they will be able to deliver at least more than 200 houses,” he said.
Andanar said Duterte did not give a deadline for the rehabilitation of Marawi City.
“So far wala ho. I don’t think it’s practical to give a deadline right now,” he said, citing the vast destruction that Marawi City sustained during the five-month siege.
Last May 23, Duterte declared martial law in entire Mindanao after the Islamic State-inspired Maute terrorist group launched an attack in Marawi City in an attempt to establish a caliphate there.
On October 16, Duterte announced the liberation of Marawi City from “terrorist influence” while Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana declared on Monday that the war in the Islamic City was over. /kga