World Touch
PHILIPPINES: Caritas Helps Typhoon Haiyan Victims
To date, Caritas, the social action arm of the Catholic Church, has been able to help about 1.8 million people affected by the destruction brought by Super Typhoon Haiyan that struck the central Philippines in 2013.
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Aug 2018The church’s recovery and rehabilitation program amounts to about US$50 million, writes Ronald Reyes for ucanews.com, Asia’s Catholic news website.
It is no surprise that the efficient response from the church has been compared with how the Philippine government implemented post-Haiyan rehabilitation programs.
Almost five years after the disaster, the government response has been beset with issues of corruption and alleged substandard construction of houses for survivors.
When asked what has made the church projects more successful than government initiatives, Father Virgilio Canete of Palo Archdiocese pointed to the absence of “red tape.” The priest said government “procedures on procurement demand a lot of signatories.”