Aquino entrusts Binay with ‘Yolanda’ housing projects

despite controversies
Christian V. Esguerra

@inquirerdotnet
Philippine Daily Inquirer

10:16 PM | Tuesday, November 4th, 2014

http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/648845/aquino-taps-binay-to-build-new-homes-
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MANILA, Philippines — Just a week before saying that Vice
President Jejomar Binay was free to leave his administration,
President Benigno Aquino III placed Binay on top of the
streamlined bureaucratic process to speed up the building of
permanent housing for victims of supertyphoon “Yolanda”
(international name: Haiyan).

Nearly a year after Yolanda, the government is set to put up a

“one-stop shop” to process permits, certifications, clearances
and licenses needed for “housing and resettlement projects in
Yolanda-affected areas,” according to Administrative Order No.
44, which the President signed last Oct. 28.

The order assigned the Binay-led Housing and Urban

Development Coordinating Council (HUDCC), which heads the
government’s Resettlement Cluster, as the lead agency to
implement the “streamlined approval process.”
Speaking to reporters last Monday, Aquino, apparently reacting
to Binay’s recent criticisms directed at the Aquino
administration, reminded the Vice President that he was part of
the administration and that Binay knew where the door was if
he thought the administration was going about it the wrong
way.

The leader of the nominally oppositionist United Nationalist

Alliance, Binay began criticizing administration policies after the
Senate began an investigation into charges that he had taken
kickbacks while still the mayor of Makati and that he had
accumulated assets beyond his income as a salaried official.

As of Tuesday, Malacañang said there were “no definite plans

yet” for Mr. Aquino to visit the areas devastated by Yolanda on
the occasion of the first anniversary on Nov. 8 of the monster
typhoon that killed more than 7,000 people.
At a Cabinet meeting on rehabilitation efforts last Monday,
officials agreed on the “delineation of safe, unsafe and
controlled zones,” said Communications Secretary Herminio
Coloma.

Coloma said the Department of Trade and Industry and the

Department of Public Works and Highways were also facilitating
the “delivery of steady supply of construction materials.”
On Friday, Rehabilitation Secretary Panfilo Lacson will deliver his
“Yolanda Report: A Story on Hope and Change.”

Besides HUDCC, the President tasked at least 10 other

government agencies to identify point persons in every province
that was devastated by Yolanda to help facilitate the issuance of
necessary documents under a “two-step approval process.”
Among the agencies given two days to work on such documents
are the Mines and Geosciences Bureau, Philippine Institute of
Volcanology and Seismology, Department of Science and
Technology, Housing and Land Use Regulatory Board, and the
Municipal Agrarian Reform Office.

Given 10 days were the city or municipal council (for resolutions

approving land reclassification), Department of Environment
and Natural Resources (for subdivision plans), Department of
Agriculture (for conversion of agricultural lands), Department of
Agrarian Reform (for orders of land conversion), and the
Environmental Management Bureau (for environmental
compliance certificates).