DSWD vows to speed up aid

The Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) is aiming to finish this year the construction of permanent housing and the provision of livelihood  to thousands of victims displaced by natural and man-made calamities during the last five years.

“The DSWD will focus on the full implementation of the recovery and rehabilitation efforts in disaster stricken areas of the Visayas earthquake, Zamboanga conflict and typhoons ‘Sendong,’ ‘Pablo,’ ‘Glenda’ and ‘Yolanda,’” the DSWD said in its report on its priorities for 2016.

The DSWD has been criticized for the slow pace of providing aid and bringing back to normal the lives of affected people years after a storm or earthquake or armed conflict struck their communities despite the availability of government funds and donations.

The DSWD said that forging partnerships with international organizations such as the United Nations World Food Program would lead to an “improved and more efficient system of disaster operations.”

It also expected that the establishment of the department-wide Disaster Risk Reduction and Management  protocols/system/capacity building guidelines would help the DSWD and other agencies to prepare for disasters of the scale and magnitude of Supertyphoon  Yolanda.

Critics noted that funds and aid had come too little, too late, for victims of typhoons Sendong (December 2011), Pablo (December 2012), Yolanda (November 2013) and Glenda (July 2014) largely due to choke points in the deployment of rehabilitation funds and lack of an integrated plan to finish the projects within a specific period.

In the case of Yolanda-damaged areas, the National Housing Authority has built only one-tenth of the more than 200,000 houses targeted to be built in communities more than two years after these areas were pummeled by the world’s strongest typhoon.

In the Zamboanga conflict—where rogue members of the Moro National Liberation Front led by Nur Misuari left Zamboanga City in rubble and thousands of families homeless in September 2013—US Ambassador Philip Goldberg had voiced concern over why thousands of internally displaced persons continue to live in the Zamboanga City sports complex and temporary shelters.