Bantayan survivors turn to loan sharks

Sta. Fe, Bantayan Island—With government’s emergency shelter aid still unreleased a year after supertyphoon Yolanda (Haiyan), survivors in this town turned to loan sharks to fund the repair of their homes.

Nearly half of the 5,000 affected families in the town already loaned the Emergency Shelter Assistance (ESA) in advance to lending firms and other small moneylenders, Sta. Fe Mayor Jose Esgana said.

“While waiting for government help, a lot of people really turned towards borrowing cash for them  to be able to fix their houses or at the least be able to build a shanty,” he told reporters.
Esgana said creditors charged a 20 percent interest to those who availed of the transaction.

For instance, families who were set to receive P10,000 only received P8,000 with the P2,000 going to the lending firm.

Risk

Many residents in Bantayan Island are still waiting to receive the promised P30,000 for families whose houses were destroyed and P10,000 for damaged houses from the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD).

Esgana said the families cannot be blamed for turning to moneylenders since the victims, most of them fishermen, were in dire financial straits following the devastation.

“It’s a risk both sa nangutang ug nagpa-utang (to those who loaned and those who provided the loan). They did it on their own initiative in order for them to get back on their feet,” added the mayor.

Only P118.5 million or less than five percent of a P2.4 billion budget for ESA were released to Yolanda supertyphoon victims in the Cebu towns of Madridejos, Sta. Fe in Bantayan and  Tabuelan, Tuburan, Sogod, and Bogo City in mainland Cebu based on the latest  DSWD report.

As of present, Sta. Fe town received P5.58 million out of the P83.15 million it requested from the DSWD for emergency shelter aid.

A little longer

In a public discourse with residents during the commemoration of the first year anniversary of Yolanda held in Bantayan town last Saturday, residents confronted Cebu Gov. Hilario Davide III with the same concern.

Bantayan, the worst-hit among the 16 affected towns and cities in north Cebu, has not yet received a single peso from its proposed P375 million for the ESA.

Esgana said the best they can do is to keep monitoring the progress of the release of the funds.

“If the funds get delayed even more, that is not emergency aid because basing on the word emergency, it must be urgent,” Mayor Esgana said.

Davide assured the residents that the cash aid will arrive “but it may take a little longer to happen.”

He said the province will continue to pressure the DSWD to release the funds for the cash aid.

“Sometimes we have problems that are completely out of our control. But have faith in your municipality, in your province and in yourselves. It will take a little longer but it will happen,” Davide said.