Marawi City gets P142-M new aid from US

DAVAO CITY—Foreign aid continued to pour into Marawi City with the United States adding P142 million to what it had already given to help displaced residents and finance the city’s rehabilitation.

The US Embassy in Manila on Friday announced, through a press statement, the addition of P142 million through the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) for Marawi.

The embassy statement said the funds would be used to build 58,000 temporary homes for the displaced residents.

It said USAID would also work with national and local government agencies to also “jump-start the local economy through income-generating activities.”

The aid agency would also help repair water and sanitation facilities, the embassy statement added.

Very important work

“This is obviously a very important work and we hope to do more in the coming years,” the statement quoted US Ambassador to the Philippines Sung Kim as saying.

Still quoting Kim, the statement said US help for Marawi showed “deep ties and unbreakable bond between the Philippines and the United States.”

Earlier, USAID had partnered with World Food Programme to deliver 1.8 million kilograms of rice to feed up to 45,000 people for four months.

The embassy statement said USAID was “ramping up efforts to help vulnerable young people” shun radicalism through “livelihood and positive engagement.”

People’s role

Drieza Lininding, chair of the Marawi-based Moro Consensus Group, said projects that the new funds would finance “should be socially cohesive.”

Other countries that have contributed to Marawi were Australia, Thailand, Japan and China. —REPORTS FROM ALLAN NAWAL AND JIGGER JERUSALEM