Congress is set to pass a joint resolution adopting a P10 billion supplemental budget to augment the government’s calamity fund as efforts to speed up relief and rescue operations for victims of tropical storm Ondoy intensifies.

Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile said the Senate and the House of Representatives have asked Budget Secretary Rolando Andaya to relay to the President “the sense of the Congress” that they are considering adopting a supplemental budget for the relief and search and rescue operations for flood victims in Metro Manila and provinces affected by Ondoy.

“We are now drafting the resolution. If possible we’ll pass it before the (Congress) break. It is a supplemental budget because it is outside of the budget submitted by the President. We never anticipated that there will be ‘Ondoy’,” Enrile said.

“It is a contingency that happened after the budget of the President was submitted so there’s a need to provide the funds, special funds for that event, and it has to be by way of a supplemental budget,” he added.

The P10 billion fund is based on the estimated damages wrought by Ondoy and other past calamities that have not been attended to.

“It’s unfair to deal only with the problems of the victims of Ondoy; (we need to act) on the victims of typhoon Frank in Iloilo,” he said.

Senate Majority Leader Juan Miguel Zubiri said the government’s regular P1 billion calamity fund had been used up, with only P27 million left.

Zubiri said 70 percent of the fund will go to Ondoy victims while the remaining 30 percent would be allotted to other provinces that were affected by previous calamities such as typhoons Frank and Milenyo.

He said they are also considering asking Andaya to advance a P150 million subsidy fund for the 150,000 families affected by the flood although there are approximately 300,000 families affected.

Zubiri said the subsidy fund will prioritize “the poorest of the poor” that have been affected.

The proposal was agreed upon by leaders of both houses of Congress in a meeting at the Hotel Sofitel in Pasay City.

Present at the Tuesday night meeting were Enrile, Zubiri and Senators Edgardo Angara, Loren Legarda and Rodolfo Biazon; Deputy Speaker Raul del Mar, House Deputy Majority Leader Neptali Gonzales II, Quirino Rep. Junie Cua and An Waray Rep. Florencio “Bem” Noel.

Also in attendance were Andaya, Public Works and Highways Secretary Hermogenes Ebdane Jr., and Defense Secretary and National Disaster Coordinating Council (NDCC) Chairman Gilbert Teodoro Jr.

“We thought of an approach to just proceed with a supplemental budget to increase the calamity fund to be used for the damages caused by typhoon,” Cua, chairman of the House Committee on Appropriations, told the Manila Bulletin.

Cua said it would be up to the Executive Department where to source the money to finance the supplemental budget.

Based on its preliminary assessment, the NDCC reported that the massive flooding triggered by Ondoy caused P4.6 billion in damage.