The task force on typhoon rehabilitation will be jointly headed by Environment and Natural Resources Secretary Roy Cimatu and Public Works and Highways Secretary Mark Villar, Palace spokesman Harry Roque said on Wednesday.
Malacañang earlier named Executive Secretary Salvador Medialdea as the head of the “Build Back Better” task force that will focus on post-disaster rehabilitation and recovery of typhoon-hit areas.
“Instead of the Executive Secretary heading the task force, it will now be jointly headed by the Secretary of the Environment and Natural Resources, Secretary Cimatu, as well as DPWH Secretary Mark Villar,” Roque said in an interview with CNN Philippines on Wednesday.
He said Cimatu and Villar leading the task force “makes sense” because the panel will be in charge of rebuilding infrastructures and addressing climate change problems.
“Not only is this based on Science, but it also makes sense because when we talk of rehabilitation, we talk basically of roads and bridges and buildings destroyed by calamity which is the turf of the DPWH and you also talk about the scientific reasons why we have typhoons of this nature which is climate change and that is the rationale for the DENR co-heading the task force,” he said.