Post-earthquake rehabilitation in the provinces of Bohol and Cebu is now 90 percent complete, according to the Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG).

DILG Undersecretary for Local Government Austere Panadero said thousands of Boholanos and Cebuanos are now benefiting from the 973 out of 1,076 completed projects in the two provinces through the Bohol Earthquake Assistance (BEA) Project.

“Now that the earthquake-damaged government facilities in Bohol and Cebu have been completed, we are confident that the delivery of basic government services to our constituents are back to normal,” Panadero said in a statement on Tuesday.

The BEA Project has an initial funding of PHP2.413 billion for the repair, rehabilitation and reconstruction of partially and totally-damaged key government facilities like municipal buildings, civic centers, bridges, barangay facilities, public markets and water supply system.

It covers Bohol and Cebu, two of the provinces severely affected by the destructive 7.2-magnitude earthquake on Oct. 15, 2013.

According to the DILG, recovery from the Bohol earthquake has been a long process considering the nature of infrastructure works that were done and the Build Back Better (BBB) consideration to ensure that the restored key government facilities are even better than the original structures.

There are also big ticket projects costing PHP5 million and above which took a long time to complete especially in the restoration of totally-damaged facilities.

Panadero said that local government units (LGUs) also handle an average of 24 BEA projects at the same time with some LGUs handling as much as 75 projects on top of the DILG projects and other infrastructure projects from other national government agencies.

At present, only 103 BEA projects are yet to be completed and are on various stages of project implementation.

“Recovering from earthquakes is a long and tedious process and through the successful implementation of BEA projects in Bohol and Cebu, we have developed a blueprint in our future rehabilitation efforts in other earthquake affected areas in the country,” Panadero said. (PNA)