Daanbantayan Mayor Gilbert Arrabis, who took office following the 2025 elections, has been vocal about the slow pace of national intervention after his town was hit by a 6.9-magnitude earthquake on Sept. 30, 2025. While aid has trickled in, some coming from different local government units (LGUs), the scars on the town’s infrastructure, specifically the Municipal Hall, remain unaddressed.
On Monday, May 25, 2026, while at the temporary shelter of the Daanbantayan municipal offices, I lost no time in meeting and greeting Mayor Arrabis, a fellow lawyer and a Visayanian, after completing my transaction with the office of the municipal assessor. My son, Dr. Eugene Dominic, accompanied me on that trip.
While Mayor Arrabis showed delight at our unexpected visit during our almost hour-long tête-à-tête, I saw frustration written all over his face as he talked about the long-delayed assistance from the National Government to rehabilitate the town from the earthquake damage, and to establish a new town hall in another location since the present site of the municipal hall is no longer safe.
Mayor Arrabis is actually governing over a town hall that literally doesn’t exist. Eight months after the 6.9-magnitude earthquake, the municipal building remains a cordoned-off ruin of twisted rebar and shattered concrete. I also noticed the derelict Catholic church nearby, which I was seeing for the first time. Monday was my first time getting to Daanbantayan after that tremor.
The mayor, who inherited this disaster shortly after taking office, is currently running a first-class municipality out of shipping containers and modular tents in Barangay Pajo, behind the town’s national high school.
The mayor said he has two options on where to build the town hall: first, to buy a private lot, which is in a good location, though the price per square meter is highly restrictive; second, to use the town’s own lot that used to be the oval grounds where the high school buildings are erected. However, the national agency is delaying approval for the use of its lot to start the construction of the new and bigger town hall, the mayor said.
The mayor told us that he’d written to President BBM on this matter, but he has yet to receive a reply from Malacañang.
Although there was no check in hand for the town hall construction specifically, a major move by Cebu Gov. Pam Baricuatro is designed to break the very bureaucratic deadlock that Mayor Arrabis has been complaining about.
In response to the delays in disaster fund releases, Governor Baricuatro signed Executive Order (EO) 30. EO 30 establishes an Executive Committee (ExeCom) for the Provincial Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council, which is mandated to eliminate bureaucratic delays and expedite the evaluation of recovery plans.
Mayor Arrabis finally has some wind at his back with the creation of the Provincial ExeCom. For Daanbantayan, this also means there is now a dedicated body whose only job is to push stalled infrastructure projects through the Provincial Board.
“Hopefully, by the time the next rainy season hits, they shall have more than a modular tent to call home,” the mayor expressed.
The support that Mayor Arrabis is looking for has shifted from a financial battle to an administrative one. The creation of the Provincial ExeCom is the first real sign that the government is trying to cut the red tape holding back Daanbantayan’s P200 million budget for its town hall.
After the May 20 distribution, where 302 Daanbantayan families finally received their P10,000 cash aid, the municipal mayor used the momentum to pivot back to the P200M budget for the Municipal Building. Mayor Arrabis argued that individual relief is not enough without institutional restoration. He is pushing the newly formed Provincial ExeCom to make the Daanbantayan Town Hall their first fast-track case study.
Here is the jarring disconnect. While the Senate argues over remote voting and procedural admissibility in preparation for the impeachment trial of Vice President Sara Duterte, Mayor Arrabis is arguing for P200 million, the price tag for a new municipal complex — a budget currently trapped in limbo at Fisaro (For Issuance of Special Allotment Release Order) status.
The mayor said they’ve been waiting for months now for the Philippine Space Agency (PhilSA) to release the satellite clearance required to start building. Despite public pressure on PhilSA to prioritize the “Northern Cebu Recovery Hub” mapping, nothing has moved quickly.
Mayor Arrabis has no reason, though, to complain about the several required clearances, such as the geohazard clearance from the Mines and Geosciences Bureau, geospatial mapping from PhilSA and the technical validation from the Department of Public Works and Highways. What he is frustrated by is the slow and cold bureaucracy that treats a fallen town hall like a routine permit application.
Compared to Bogo City, just a few kilometers south, Daanbantayan has been left behind. As the epicenter, Bogo received “ground zero” attention. It was the first stop for cabinet visits and the first to receive its P75 million recovery grant. Today, Bogo is retrofitting its offices; Daanbantayan is still waiting for a satellite to confirm it’s safe to dig a foundation.
There is an irony in the timing. Senator Cayetano’s rise to the Senate presidency was fast-tracked in a single afternoon because the national interest — or at least the interest of the 13 who voted for him — demanded it. Yet, the reconstruction of a town that serves 93,000 Cebuanos is being slow-walked through a maze of administrative requirements.