THE Presidential Commission for the Urban Poor (PCUP) has replied to queries regarding the alleged ‘unutilized’ funds of Oplan LIKAS Program initiated by the Department of Interior and Local Government (DILG) with the PCUP.
In a statement, PCUP chairperson and chief executive officer Undersecretary Elpidio Jordan Jr. clarified that the allocated funds for the said program that should have been given to qualified beneficiaries had been returned to the DILG after the period for its distribution lapsed due to unavoidable delays.
More than 11,000 relocated families formerly residing in danger zones in Metro Manila were promised financial assistance in response to the impact of typhoon Ondoy by the DILG through the Oplan LIKAS Program.
Out of the number only about 3,000 were able to receive the assigned P18,000 per family aid.
The funds were initially disbursed by the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) but following the closure of the agency’s project-based office, the financial assistance was reverted back to the DILG and was later transferred after a year to the PCUP and National Housing Authority (NHA) for distribution.
Sources also disclosed that the long delays in the process were due to difficulties faced by the DILG in finding the right agency to disburse the relocation assistance as well as the imposition of the election ban for the 2016 national elections and eventually the advent of the coronavirus pandemic in 2020.
It was in 2016 that P214.806 million was transferred by the DILG to the PCUP for proper disbursement of the P18,000 interim shelter funds targeted for 11,367 qualified informal settler families residing in danger zones under the Oplan LIKAS Program.
However, after President Rodrigo Roa Duterte assumed power, the finalization of the Implementing Rules and Regulations (IRR) took time and was only released the following year with the DILG only able to provide a list of the first batch of qualified beneficiaries numbering 66 out of the more than 11,000 in December 2017.
Another year passed and by then there had been a change of leadership in the PCUP and finally the agency began disbursement of the interim shelter allocation which reached only 3,249 awardees and the utilization of P58,482 from the program’s funds.
But with the long delays due to difficulties faced by DILG in the tedious process of identification and validation of Oplan LIKAS beneficiaries, including the lack of enough administrative budget, PCUP is now processing the reversion of P26 million from the first tranche while having returned the P119.606 million of the second tranche on March 21, 2019 to the Bureau of Treasury as stipulated in the memorandum of agreement (MoA) between PCUP and DILG.
