DILG’S ACCOMPLISHMENT SUMMARY INDICATES

Senatorial bet Martin Romualdez erred in his sweeping claim negating the serious and dramatically gaining Bohol recovery effort after the epic earthquake, a lead agency’s running accomplishment summary has indicated.

An update from the Department of Interior and Local Government (DILG)-Bohol Office on the implementation of the P2.3 billion Bohol Earthquake Assistance (BEA) Fund even effectively refuted his claim.

The DILG is the national implementing agency for the BEA intended to reconstruct/rehabilitate local government buildings and public structures like city, town and barangay halls, health stations, markets, Day Care centers, etcetera.

These completed projects are in the First District with 138; Second District, 251; and Third District, 172.

In addition, there are 307 sub-projects which construction is on-going, including those which are 95% accomplished.

An independent senatorial candidate, Romualdez met with the national, regional and local media during his Bohol sortie on Wednesday and hit the province’s recovery as “excruciatingly slow.”

In a statement, he cited a Commission on Audit report saying that only 12 of 1,079 rehabilitation projects under the BEA had been completed in 2014 alone.

The DILG, other assisting agencies and local government units (LGUs) involved in BEA works have deemed the Leyteño candidate’s remark as unfair, if not offensive and insulting, to their earnest, restless efforts.

Still, Boholanos across sections took positively the outsider’s criticism, noting that Romualdez, an incumbent Leyte congressman, himself urged the government to speed up the rehabilitation and reconstruction of Leyte.

Romualdez’s own province was severely destroyed by super typhoon Yolanda three weeks after the magnitude 7.2 earthquake in Bohol in 2013.

The Boholanos and their leaders topped by Gov. Edgar Chatto have truly worked harder for full recovery and they could attest to the consistent support of the Aquino administration to Bohol’s rehabilitation needs.

DILG Provincial Director Loisella Lucino said the BEA accomplishment rate is fast and dramatic even if the national government thru the DILG Central Office downloaded the BEA fund to the province just in August 2014 or 16 months ago.

The implementation speed has been significant further despite the strict DILG technical guidelines in the preparation of the programs of works, volumes of projects in each quake-affected locality against the wanton lack of engineers, and long period of expert ground safety validation, including the need for secured relocation sites.

The provincial government released the allocations as soon as the LGUs complied with the POWs and other requirements with the assistance of engineers provided by the DILG itself.

As of the opening week of January 2016, already 1,020 sub-projects have been funded additional 123 are on bidding.

The Provincial Engineering Office (PEO) has also been assisting in BEA works even if it has to simultaneously attend to its regular and other major special projects, the latter including the foreign-aided Provincial Road Management Facility (PRMF) and Philippine Rural Development Project (PRDP), as well as the tourism road convergence program.