THE Department of Budget and Management (DBM) has released an additional P8 billion for the construction of permanent housing units for victims of Supertyphoon Yolanda (international code name Haiyan) a year after the typhoon caused massive devastation.
Budget Secretary Florencio B. Abad said the P8-billion fund was released to the National Housing Authority (NHA), bringing the total amount of funds released to P19 billion for the reconstruction of Yolanda-devastated areas.
Apart from fund releases for the housing projects, the budget department also released P11 billion for the rehabilitation and recovery under the program of Panfilo Lacson.
Abad said the P8-billion release was sourced from the 2014 Rehabilitation and Reconstruction Program.
“Our goal is to restore normalcy in these communities and improve their resiliency to disasters. This release will not just allow the NHA to provide shelter to Yolanda’s survivors. It will also ensure that the affected families will have quality, permanent housing that will enable them to weather future disasters safely,” Abad said in a statement on Monday.
The NHA made the request for the housing needs of various regions affected by Yolanda. The funds aim to cover the construction of 64,982 houses.
“But more than just building permanent housing for the Yolanda victims, the government is implementing the ‘build back better’ strategy to rebuild communities in safer areas rather than in the danger zones where they were first located,” Abad said.
The build back better goal also means the government will target stronger infrastructure and better opportunities for economic growth in the newly built or rebuilt communities, from properly repaired roads that can transport goods from farms to markets, to the reconstruction of classrooms, he added.