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Did the government make promises that were far too difficult to execute?
On Sun, Nov 1, People Surge — a group of Typhoon Yolanda survivors — slammed the government, in particular Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) Secretary Corazon “Dinky” Soliman “for lying about the progress of rehabilitation work in Eastern Visayas.”
People Surge secretary-general Marissa Cabaljao stated, “Dinky is a liar.”
“Cabaljao went on to say that Soliman deliberately deceived the public when she said there would no longer be any bunkhouses in Tacloban City by the end of October 2015,” reports Rio N. Araja in The Standard.
Indeed, another report by John Paolo Bencito published by The Standard on Oct 29, 2015 contained this passage:
Cabaljao scoffed at the said vow, saying, “This is far from reality. On the last day of October, People Surge visited the IPI [International Pharmaceutical Inc.] bunkhouse at Caibaan, one of the bunkhouses in Tacloban. What we witnessed were more or less 400 families still living in bunkhouses. Dinky Soliman broke another promise to the hundreds of families who have long been waiting for permanent shelter.”
The report noted: “Cabaljao pointed out that the Aquino administration vowed to build and complete permanent shelters for the victims since January 2014 in just a span of six months.” She then said, “Six months passed and another six months came to pass. Two years since Yolanda, what they got were only empty promises and false hopes.”
The report indicated that “citing data from the National Housing Authority, Cabaljao said only 534 permanent houses out of the targeted 13,801 houses had been built as of September 2015.”
The report recalled that on Nov 8, 2013, Yolanda flattened Eastern Visayas and killed more than 6,000 people.
