UN agency exec cites PH reconstruction work

FUKUOKA, Japan—Despite political bickering, the Philippines is in the right direction in its reconstruction efforts a year after Supertyphoon “Yolanda” struck and killed more than 6,000 people, according to Yoshinobu Fukasawa, UN Human Settlements Program (UN Habitat) director for Asia and the Pacific.

“I really admire the courage of the Filipino people,” Fukasawa said. “I’m struck by the courage of the people who suffered but are now slowly standing up and beginning to recover. That is what I’ve been witnessing everywhere.”

He declined to elaborate on political issues, saying both the victims and local governments affected needed the support of UN Habitat.

“We’re not here to criticize. We’re here to support and that’s what we’ve been doing. It’s not right to separate politicians and people, but at the end of the day, it’s the people who lead the reconstruction under good guidance from the government in that regard,” he said.

While the pace of reconstruction in the Philippines after Yolanda (international name: “Haiyan”) may not be “super-fast,” it also goes with other countries similarly situated, he said.

“Disaster reveals the uniqueness of each country,” he stressed.

Fukasawa was interviewed on the sidelines of UN Habitat’s 9th Asian City Journalist Conference, 2nd Kyushu Media Conference, here where the Inquirer was a media panelist. Organizers include Kyushu Economic Federation, Kyushu Chamber of Commerce and other business groups.

The Philippines has a well-developed democracy in place, which makes it possible for consensus-building in coordinating rebuilding efforts, he said.

UN Habitat has been providing Tacloban City Mayor Alfred Romualdez with policy advice. Tacloban is an area worst hit by Yolanda in November last year.

“He’s doing good,” he said of Romualdez. “From our perspective, I believe he has been successful in terms of consolidating people’s participation so that the reconstruction plan is not just something up in the air but is something that is coming from the people also.”

At the behest of UN Habitat, the Japanese government has provided $2.5 million to help a limited group of people buy their own construction materials and train carpenters in rebuilding their own houses under a system called “people’s process.”

“We don’t build the house and give it to them. We try to help the people organize by themselves and reconstruct their houses on their own so that the community can be empowered.”

Recently, he said, the Department of Social Welfare and Development provided matching funds so that the resource could be applied to more people.

“It’s not only the physical element that you need for reconstruction … . Houses, you can do that in one month. But the community that has to be revived and those who may have lost their loved ones, they have to recover, which takes time,” he said. “We’re not just talking of a village. We’re talking of a city with history.”