OPENING REMARKS OF PARR Secretary Panfilo M. LacsonPresidential Assistant for Rehabilitation & Recovery (PARR) Presentation & Approval of Provincial & City Rehabilitation Plans30 May 2014Waterfront Hotel, Lahug, Cebu

Greetings.

We Filipinos are known for possessing some unique positive traits. We are MAABILIDAD, for being skillful and hardworking; MAPARAAN, or resourceful because we find solutions to challenging problems and maneuver well in difficult situations. Typhoon Yolanda exposed yet one more of those unique traits - Filipinos have become widely known, even among the community of nations as resilient, and with an amazingly high spirit for survival - we are mas MATATAG than any race in this world.

I believe that these inherent Filipino traits will equip us to bounce back and then forward from the world-record breaking calamity named Haiyan aka Yolanda, and rebuild our country better.

Let me tell you a little story -

At the time of my appointment as PARR last December, we had to operate with practically no manpower and zero financial resource. Needless to say, we were largely incapacitated. In fact, Usec Danny Antonio and I were a team of 2 tasked to rebuild badly devastated 171 cities and municipalities along the Yolanda corridor. We had no office or tables. But because we are Filipinos, we are MAABILIDAD at MAPARAAN. We have evolved into at least a functioning office complete with staff and volunteers. It has been a continuing mantra in our office that we will make do with what we have. Modesty aside, I can say without hesitation that OPARR has made progress in carrying out its mandate with very little resources.. Paging Secretary Butch Abad.

Levity aside, Sec Butch, if you haven't noticed, hindi po ako pala hingi at pala daing sa aming mga pangangailangan.

Compounding our problems is the common challenge that any government anywhere in the whole wide world faces - bureaucracy, red tape and cumbersome laws inherent in our system of governance, even those relating to disaster response. Now, this is understandable since, at the time our laws were crafted, the Philippines and whole world had never before experienced an onslaught as devastating as Yolanda.

But because Filipinos are resourceful, MAABILIDAD and natural survivors, we were able to find a way to fast-track our rehabilitation and recovery efforts by adopting a bottom-up and piecemeal approach, empowering LGUs to formulate their respective rehab plans, complemented by a cluster framework approach to come up with action plans and programs to validate the local government plans. Thanks to the President, his Excellency approved this approach in principle during our special cabinet meeting last May 16. So far, rehabilitation plans have already been submitted and presented to the cabinet cluster groups by Cebu, Leyte, Western Samar and Tacloban city.

That is why we are here today and I have high hopes that this will be our final vetting day - at least as far as the 4 LGUs I mentioned earlier.

I also hope that from this day on, we will continue to receive from the rest of the LGUs - Iloilo, Aklan, Antique, Capiz, Biliran, Negros Occidental, Palawan and the rest of the Yolanda affected areas so we can continue to be on track in rehabilitating all those areas.

Speaking of plans, what actually makes a plan good, if we may ask ourselves - if only to serve as our guidepost when we decide today to sign off on the rehabilitation plans that we will see and hear later, a good plan must, first, support a goal and pursue an objective; it should be realistic and implementable and never inflexible. Its progress must be measurable. A plan is a roadmap to a destination, which is its defined goal.

Our objective is to alleviate the suffering of the survivors in the most expeditious but efficient manner. Our goal is to build back better, so the typhoon prone areas will be better prepared for future disasters as powerful if not stronger than Yolanda, which we now regard as the new normal.

Before I end, I want to give special mention to another trait which has continued to touch me and the rest of my staff throughout our experience since we became OPARR (Office of the Presidential Assistant for Rehabilitation and Recovery). The Filipino trait of being MAPAGMALASAKIT or giving genuine empathy and care. MALASAKIT is what I continue to see to be crucial in supporting rehabilitation efforts by the public and private sectors as they go above and beyond their calling, even beyond their means, such as those who have given and continue to give financial and material donations; or those who are directly involved in rebuilding homes, classrooms and providing means of livelihood, even those who worked for months without pay, like most of my staff at OPARR.

And, I will never forget the members of the cabinet who spend extra working hours in our pursuit of a common objective - to help in the noble cause of helping uplift communities and ease the pain of the typhoon survivors.

Let me end with this challenge - let us continue to be MAABILIDAD, MAPARAAN, MATATAG, but most of all, let us not lose our MALASAKIT for our kababayans who direly need our help now, not a year, not 6 months, not even a month from today.

Mabuhay ang Pilipinas!