WHEN Typhoon Odette (Rai) struck Cebu on Dec. 16, 2021, it tore through communities, flattening homes and affecting hundreds of thousands of families. The government promised aid. But years later, more than P712 million meant for Cebu Province victims was returned to the National Treasury unused.
The money, part of the National Housing Authority’s (NHA) Emergency Housing Assistance Program (Ehap), was supposed to help thousands of families rebuild after one of the strongest storms to hit the country in recent years.
The confirmation from NHA 7 that the aid was returned to the national coffers in 2024 has raised pressing questions in Cebu about who is to blame for the failure.
For Odette survivors, the controversy adds to their frustration. While the cities of Mandaue and Lapu-Lapu managed to complete their aid distribution in 2023 and 2024, families in Cebu Province never received the cash assistance from the NHA.
Aid flow
The Ehap guidelines were straightforward:
Each household with a destroyed home was entitled to P10,000.
Beneficiaries were identified using the Office of Civil Defense (OCD) list.
In Cebu Province, the OCD list recognized 72,209 qualified households. By this count, the P712 million fund was designed to cover exactly those families.
Take note: Home is the place where someone lives, often with personal or emotional meaning, while household refers to a group of people living together in a home, which can be a single person, one family, or two or more families sharing the same dwelling. Also, the Provincial Government excludes the highly urbanized cities of Cebu, Mandaue and Lapu-Lapu.
Guidelines vs. priorities
The core problem was a clash between national guidelines and provincial priorities.
NHA’s approach: Stick strictly to the OCD list. Only families with destroyed homes would get P10,000 each.
Province’s proposal (under then-gov. Gwendolyn Garcia): Expand coverage to over 400,000 households, including those damaged homes. Instead of P10,000 each, the money would be prorated (divided proportionally) so more families could benefit.
NHA 7 Manager Hermes Jude Juntilo told reporters on Thursday, Sept. 4, 2025, that the numbers simply did not match. If they followed their list, many families in the province’s records would be excluded, sparking complaints. But if they followed the province’s plan, it would break Ehap guidelines.
Soundbites: Juntilo, Garcia
Both sides have defended their positions.
Juntilo confirmed that the NHA Central Office blocked the Capitol’s request to manage the distribution.
“Our general manager did not allow the province to handle the implementation. In the end, the funds were returned to the National Treasury,” he said.
Garcia, for her part, told SunStar that the Capitol should not be blamed for the return of the aid to the National Treasury. She said adopting NHA’s plan would have been “a recipe for chaos,” leaving local officials vulnerable to complaints.
“Other LGUs would complain. Even if you give us a list, it won’t match ours, so some won’t receive aid. Who gets blamed? From the barangay captain to the mayor to me,” Garcia said in Cebuano.
She explained that her proposal was to distribute the
money through Dasig Sugbo Cards — reloadable cards restricted to purchases of food or construction materials — so families could rebuild directly.
Learning from the past
Garcia pointed to problems during the Covid-19 pandemic aid distribution, when barangay officials and mayors faced complaints before the Ombudsman over alleged favoritism. To avoid a repeat, she wanted a system where no family would feel excluded.
But NHA officials feared that deviating from the official beneficiary list would lead to audit problems, accusations of fund misuse, or unfair allocation.
Garcia emphasized that even without the NHA funds, the Capitol had already set aside P2 billion in 2021 for recovery and rehabilitation. This allowed the Provincial Government to assist both those with destroyed homes and those with damaged ones.
When all’s said and done
The return of Odette aid to the national coffers is less about money than about trust, coordination, and governance. The NHA insisted on following its rules, the Province, during the time of then-governor Garcia, pushed for inclusivity, and in the end, survivors were left in the middle. The case illustrates a broader problem: when national and local priorities clash, disaster victims end up paying the price. / ABC, ANV