The estimated damage brought by super typhoon “Pepito” to the province stood at P3.46 billion as of Nov. 24, 2024, according to the report of the Philippine Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Office (PDRRMO).
Add to this the P820 million in damage to national infrastructure reported by the DPWH Catanduanes District Engineering Office to its regional office as well as the P465 million cost of repair and rehabilitation of school buildings in the DepEd Catanduanes Schools Division Office, the total cost of the cyclone’s rampage is now almost P5 billion.
Of course, this does not consider the public funds expended by the national and local governments in providing DSWD Family Food Packs and temporary shelter materials to residents in the most affected towns.
Given the natural tendency of some local chief executives to overstate the damage to their towns and submit a bloated damage report, the actual impact of the storm in terms of rehabilitation cost is probably considerably lesser compared to the submitted figures.
The PDRRMO report, for example, gave the partial total of P1.5 billion as the cost of damage to private housing, based on reports submitted by just six towns.
A closer look at the municipal totals, however, will show a discrepancy between the figures.
The Gigmoto LGU claimed that the cost of damage to 2,693 homes battered by “Pepito” came up to P587 million while Bagamanoc, with a total of 2,788 damaged or destroyed houses, placed the cost of damage at P495 million.
In contrast, the similarly hard-hit municipality of Pandan, with a total of 4,245 damaged homes, estimated the cost of reconstruction at only P58 million.
An analysis of the Gigmoto damage estimate will show that the MDRRMO used P500,000 as the cost for each totally damaged residence and P250,000 for the partially damaged ones.
It is likely that the Bagamanoc disaster managers utilized similar figures in computing the damage to private housing while the other towns settled for a lower cost.
Considering that most of those destroyed were built of light materials, it would seem that P500,000 for a totally damaged house of the same build would be too high.
This propensity to bloat typhoon damage is not limited to LGUs, as shown by the report submitted by DPWH Catanduanes DEO.
In its initial report to the regional office, the district engineer placed at P20 million each the estimated rehabilitation cost of damaged school buildings at San Jose (Oco) National High School and San Jose (Oco) Elementary School, both in Viga town.
The report said both buildings sustained damage to its GI roof, roof framing, windows, doors and ceilings.
The DepEd Catanduanes Schools Division Office, however, calculated the damage to San Jose ES at P1.06 million and that of San Jose NHS at P4.2 million.
The difference is huge and very significant as it can only mean two things: the DPWH engineers conducted a “table” computation of the damage cost while the DepEd personnel based their estimate on the actual damage as seen and measured by themselves or the principals at the site.
LGU chief executives and some agency officials would likely reason that the use of the bloated damage estimates is better, as the national government or other funding agencies would just give only a small percentage of the among requested.
For some time now, since the enactment of Republic Act 10121 in 2009, nobody has yet to face criminal charges for committing acts prohibited under said law.
Among the acts for which any violator could be held liable and be subjected to penalties is Section 19 (i), on the “deliberate use of false or inflated data in support of the request for funding, relief goods, equipment or other aid commodities for emergency assistance or livelihood projects.”
Clearly, the penalties of fine ranging from P50,000 to P500,000, or imprisonment of six to 12 years, and perpetual disqualification from public office do not deter public officials from inflating the true scale and cost of disasters.
As to when the authorities or any taxpayer would sue any public official for the offense, the people does not know but they should realize that tampering with facts to get a higher share of calamity assistance works to the detriment of other LGUs just doing the right thing.