Feature: Haiyan survivors in Philippines still in dire conditions almost 2 years after disaster

Almost two years after super- typhoon Haiyan (local name: Yolanda) devastated a wide swath of Central Philippines, thousands of survivors are still living in dire conditions in shanties or makeshift shelters without power or running water.

This was the assessment over the weekend by Chaloka Beyani, UN special rapporteur on the human rights of internally displaced persons (IDPs). "While the government is to be commended in terms of its immediate responses, its attention to ensuring sustainable durable solutions for IDPs remains inadequate to date," Beyani said in a statement posted on the UN website.

Beyani was in the Philippines in late July to check on the government's handling of people displaced by Haiyan and by the fighting between the Philippine military and Muslim rebels in the southern Philippines.

Aside from falling short of safety standards, the wood-and-tin "bunkhouses" also leave women and girls vulnerable to sexual abuse and early pregnancy, Beyani said.

In response to Beyani's assessment, Communications Secretary Herminio Coloma assured the United Nations that the government of President Benigno Aquino III was continuing to focus on building permanent, safe and decent homes for the Haiyan victims. "Government agencies like the Departments of Social Welfare and Development, Public Works and Highways and National Housing Authority, as well as concerned local governments, have not stopped responding to the needs of the people in a bid to help bring back normalcy to their lives," Coloma said in a radio interview.

He said there would be additional funding for Haiyan rehabilitation efforts in the proposed government budget for 2016. "We assure the UN that the government will step up its determination to complete the rehabilitation efforts so as to ensure that those displaced would transfer to permanent and decent human settlements away from danger zones. It was also our objective to provide them with livelihood and jobs so they could arise from this calamity," Coloma said.

President Aquino has earlier budgeted 160 billion pesos (3.6 billion U.S. dollars) to rebuild the areas devastated by Haiyan, considered as one of the major tests of his six-year term that will end in June next year.

But former Senator Panfilo Lacson, who has been appointed by Aquino as his erstwhile overall coordinator for the rehabilitation of Haiyan-affected areas, said that the Manila government has failed to release a big chunk of the budget, thus delaying the construction of the much-needed housing units.

The government's social welfare agency has admitted that roughly 2,000 families have been forced to remain in evacuation camps and shanties since Haiyan struck.

Official government records also showed only 2.5 percent of the targeted 21,012 permanent housing units in the worst-hit Eastern Visayas region were ready as of June. The National Housing Authority reported only 542 houses were completed.

The Philippines is one of the world's most disaster-prone countries, at risk from earthquakes, volcanic eruptions and an average of 20 typhoons yearly.

Haiyan, the most powerful storm ever recorded to hit land, wiped out entire communities and left 7,350 dead or missing when it struck the impoverished central Philippine island-provinces on Nov. 8, 2013.

After the disaster, China was among the first countries to respond by sending humanitarian aid and relief goods.

China also sent its state-of-the-art hospital ship, the Peace Ark which had 106 medical professionals and world-class equipment on board, to the Philippines.

The hospital ship had treated hundreds of patients during its stay. Leyte Congressman Ferdinand Romualdez thanked China for sending the Peace Ark, saying that the hospital ship was even bigger than the regional hospital in the city. Endi