TWO members of the Makabayan Bloc in the House of Representatives on Wednesday assailed the failure of the Presidential Management Staff (PMS) and the Department of Education (DepEd) to reimburse the money spent by DepEd employees to repair their houses three years after Typhoon Yolanda (international code name Haiyan) struck.
“We take these agencies to task for failing to deliver on their promise that they will extend financial assistance to survivors who had to repair or rebuild their homes,” said Party-list Rep. Antonio L. Tinio of ACT Teachers.
Tinio added that the survivors are still waiting the second tranche of the aid.
Party-list Rep. France Castro of ACT Teachers, on the other hand, said many of those who had to secure loans to make their homes habitable again are now deep in debt.
Sourced from the President’s Social Fund (PSF), the PMS assistance is either P100,000 for the repair of totally or heavily damaged houses or P30,000 for partially damaged.
It covers government employees who are victims of Yolanda, as well as the Bohol earthquake, around half of whom are DepEd employees in 27 divisions in Regions 4A, 4B, 5, 6, 7, 8, 10 and 11.
Upon the legislators’ inquiry, the Office for Special Projects under the PMS confirmed that only the first tranche of the assistance was released to DepEd in June 2015—only half of the amount per beneficiary—and that the second tranche will not be released until the completion of the liquidation and the physical and performance evaluation by the DepEd Regional Offices and the PMS, respectively.
Tinio and Castro reported receiving complaints from teachers and other DepEd employees that they have already submitted complete liquidation documents three months after they received the first tranche, as required by the PMS guidelines, or by the end of 2014 for the earliest recipients.
“We believe that the lag is with the liquidation in the regional office level and the PMS evaluation. Adding to the delay is the very late release by the PMS and DepEd of the aid to some of the beneficiaries, some of whom report receiving their first half only this year,” they explained.
“We, therefore, urge the PMS and DepEd to speed up the liquidation, evaluation and release of the entire assistance to our teachers, non-teaching personnel and other DepEd employees. Three years is too long to keep survivors of major disasters hanging.”
They also urged these agencies to address other issues on the assistance, including the reconsideration of the “downgrading” of the aid for some of the beneficiaries (from “totally damaged” to “partially damaged,” with the beneficiaries liable to refund the excess amounts) and extending the assistance to survivors who were excluded as beneficiaries.