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TACLOBAN CITY-More than 120,000 households from the provinces of Leyte and Samar have received their emergency shelter assistance (ESA) from the government, more than a year after Supertyphoon “Yolanda” one of the country’s impoverished regions.

As of last month, around P2 billion has been released by the regional office of the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) benefitting 121,087 households.

The beneficiaries were from the towns of Tanauan, Tolosa, Palompon, Javier, Palo, Mahaplag, Kananga, Tunga and Tacloban City, all in Leyte; Talalora in Samar and the towns of Guiuan and Mecedes, both in Eastern Samar.

Based on the DSWD record, there were 263,978 households coming from 61 towns and the cities of Tacloban and Ormoc that needs the financial assistance with said department needing at least P5 billion.

Under the DSWD guidelines, houses which sustained partial damages are to receive P10, 000 while owners whose houses were totally damaged are to receive P30,000.

Entitled to receive are those whose houses were either partially or tally damaged located in safe zones; government workers whose salaries not exceed P15,000 and have no access to housing loans, among others.

The ESA distribution was started last year.

Many of the local government units that are supposed to receive the assistance have either yet to comply the necessary documents like disaster terminal report, rehabilitation plan and comprehensive land use plan (CLUP) or have yet to get their funding at the DSWD, a staff who declined to be identified for not being authorized, said.
“The money is already available in our office but they have yet to get it,” the staff said.

While there is no deadline set for the distribution of the shelter assistance, it was learned that all intended beneficiaries should receive their share before the end of this year.

In Tacloban, considered the ground zero of the world’s strongest typhoon, only those houses which sustained partial damages have received their P10,000.

Those who are to receive their P30,000 ESA or those whose houses sustained total damages have to wait until the city government managed to liquidate the more than P314 million it received.

This means, the 25,884 house owners have to wait before they could receive their ESA.