ILOILO CITY — Western Visayas officials have called on the national government to find and release funds for repair and rehabilitation projects in areas ravaged by the 2008 Typhoon Frank, warning of the possibility of another disaster when the rainy season sets in.

Presidential Assistant for Western Visayas Raul Banias said on Thursday the release of the P8-billion “Paglaum (Hope) Fund” remained unsure more than eight months after the typhoon triggered the region's worst flooding.

Banias, executive director of Task Force Bangon Panay, said the delay in the release of funds put on hold much needed repairs and replacement of vital infrastructure projects and the dredging of heavily silted creeks, rivers and other waterways.

The heavily silted rivers could overflow and trigger flash floods similar to those of 2008, he said.

“We are worried that a big disaster would happen when the rain comes,” Banias said in a speech at a regional summit on sustainable development.

He said the release of the funds have been put on hold because the sourcing of the funds has been pegged to the passing of the Simplified Net Income Tax Scheme (SNITS) bill pending in Congress, which would raise P9 billion.

Banias said the SNITS, if approved, would be implemented in 2010 at the earliest because there was not enough time to enact the bill before the April 15 deadline in the filing of income taxes.

“If the rehabilitation fund will be sourced from revenues raised through SNITS, then it would be too late,” Banias said in an interview.

Iloilo City Mayor Jerry Treñas warned that lives could be lost and properties could be damaged in new floods since the creeks and rivers in the city have not been rehabilitated and were mostly silted.

Treñas' house and other properties were among those damaged when the typhoon struck on June 21, 2008.

The House of Representatives passed House Bill 4824, which allocated P8 billion to finance the reconstruction and the rehabilitation of the provinces of Iloilo, Antique, Aklan, Capiz, Guimaras and Negros Occidental, and the cities of Iloilo and Bacolod, which suffered heavy damage after the typhoon triggered the worst flooding in the region in recent years.

The Regional Disaster Coordinating Council reported that at least 342 persons died and 886 were injured during the typhoon in the Western Visayas region alone.

The flooding affected around 2,545 villages and 417,399 families or 2,094,105 persons, destroyed at least 50,571 houses and damaged another 101,080 houses. /Inquirer