Quake victims to get emergency shelter assistance - DSWD

ORMOC CITY, July 14 --The national government will be giving Emergency Shelter Assistance (ESA) to earthquake victims in Leyte, Department of Social Welfare and Development Secretary (DSWD) Judy Taguiwalo said on Thursday evening. 

ESA is an assistance from the government in the form of either cash or building materials for disaster-affected families to rebuild their partially or totally damaged houses in a safe location. 

The government after the devastation due to typhoon "Yolanda" in 2013 had given PHP30,000 cash assistance to each family with totally-damaged house and PHP10,000 for the partially-damaged residence.

The DSWD secretary is unsure how much the earthquake victims will be receiving but it will be released within three months. 

Taguiwalo was one of the Cabinet members who came to Ormoc City on Thursday when President Rodrigo Duterte checked on the quake visit. 

“There is no standard on how much is the worth of the emergency shelter assistance that the DSWD will give to the victims. This will depend on the capacity of the government on how much financial assistance they can give to the quake victims given the present situation of the country,” Taguiwalo explained. 

The present situation now in Marawi had depleted DSWD's Quick Response Fund (QRF) due to the large number of population affected by the ongoing battle between the government troops and members of Maute group.

“But here we still need to talk if we will follow the same standard and if yes, then we will talk how much is the ESA that we will provide,” Taguiwalo said.

At present, the social welfare department is focusing on providing temporary shelter or transitional shelter to quake victims and on the implementation of cash-for-work once the rebuilding stage will start.

“Definitely we will help the victims. Our main goal right now is to ensure that the basic food items are distributed to the quake victims and help the LGU in camp management then on early recovery,” Taguiwalo said.

“Right now we are still validating if how many are partially and totally damaged units, which among the damaged houses can be rebuilt on site and which is at the no-build zone or danger zone because they are located at the fault line,” said Taguiwalo.

Personnel of the DSWD from the city government of Ormoc, the local government units of Kananga and other municipal links are conducting assessment on ground to finish their assessment on Friday. (Roel T. Amazona/PNA)