August 3, 2015 – Tacloban City. “ESA is NOT a donation of the international community!” DSWD Region Eight Regional Director Nestor Ramos cried out in a recent interview.

“The Emergency Shelter Assistance (ESA) implementation is governed by a special budget passed by the Congress, taken from the GOP (Government of the Philippines), meaning from the taxpayers. Ang pera ng international community ay implemented ng International Non-Government Organizations (INGOs)”, Director Ramos further pointed out.

Ramos also emphasized that the ESA is given out to the DSWD to families who have no permanent source of income, or whose income is below the poverty threshold of the region (Php 15,000.00).

“This ESA is distributed to those who do not have access to government or private loans, since the DSWD takes care of the poor,” he added.

“We cannot grant ESA to all; there is prioritization because government resources are limited. So those given housing assistance from other resources cannot benefit”, Ramos said.

For those who were able to avail of the ESA, then later housing assistance from international NGOs Director Ramos said, “it was beyond our control. The donor-agency came in late and granted the shelter aid after we had distributed the ESA, like in the case of Bgy 60 of Tacloban City.”

RD Ramos explained how there was no shelter assistance then, before the first batch release, provided by the international NGOs. But now, with this July Pantawid releases, Bgy 62-A has been provided with housing units by INGOs. However, for this barangay, also in Tacloban, there were Pantawid Pamilya beneficiaries eligible for ESA who were taken away from the list and were not granted in this week’s distribution. The reason is that they were found to have been earlier provided with the housing benefit by INGOs.

Director Ramos went on to say that within the lifespan of the housing units awarded by these INGOs, DSWD will be providing these beneficiaries with interventions such as livelihood. He added that the housing assistance of partner NGOs should not be considered as temporary as it could last for five years and over.

On the other hand, Ramos stated that “Memorandum Circular (MC) 24 which is the ESA guidelines should be applied to the 4Ps and non-4Ps members alike. And the members of the Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program (4Ps) should be the first to help disseminate information about MC 24”, Ramos concluded.

The agency plans to call a meeting, at the soonest possible time, with international NGOs like Plan International, Red Cross and CRS for better coordination on the shelter assistance project. ###