Last August 24, DICT announced that PHAR website, www.phar.gov.ph, was born to provide government transparency through monitoring and tracking local and foreign humanitarian assistance to the Philippines. It is a joint initiative of the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA), the Office of the Civil Defense (OCD), and the DICT.
The OCD has been true to its mission in administering a comprehensive civil defense and disaster risk reduction and management program towards a safer and resilient community. It envisions being a fully capacitated agency that leads the implementation of an integrated civil defense and disaster risk reduction and management program by 2022. It is one of the arms of the Philippine government that provides leadership in the continuous development of strategic and systematic approaches as well as measures to reduce the vulnerabilities and risks to hazards and an organization that manages the consequences of disasters in the country.
The Department of Foreign Affairs is the executive department of the Philippine government tasked to contribute to the enhancement of national security and the protection of the territorial integrity and national sovereignty, to participate in the national endeavor of sustaining development and enhancing the Philippines’ competitive edge, to protect the rights and promote the welfare of Filipinos overseas and to mobilize them as partners in national development, to project a positive image of the Philippines, and to increase international understanding of Philippine culture for mutually-beneficial relations with other countries.
Both OCD and DFA have extended the frontier of their capabilities in assisting the Philippines during the pandemic. It is also noteworthy to mention the efforts of DFA in facilitating in the cooperation on vaccine trials and manufacturing in the country.
PHAR website duties include collecting pertinent data on humanitarian assistance received by the Philippines. It also systematically classifies the types of donations and stores information of donation beneficiaries.
Powered by a reputable cybersecurity system, it guarantees that the database holds confidential within the premises of the government bodies holding responsible for the receiving and allocating of the said budget. It also guarantees the confidentiality of information on benefactors.
In a graph posted on-site, a number of domestic donations reached up to 6,801 (222 of which are financial). The number of international donations is now at 475 (2 of which are financial) and China has the greatest number of aids.
For philanthropists, PHAR website gives pertinent instructions to guests on what and how you can donate. The Philippines is still in need of Personal Protective Equipment (PPEs), essentials such as disinfectants, food, hygiene kits and more. Medical equipment such as infrared thermometers, mechanical ventilators, real-time polymerase chain reaction machines and test kits are also needed.
Preferred brands and manufacturers for medical equipment are meticulously specified on the page. DFA’s response to the health crisis in the country encompasses the procurement of availability and access to information on all local and international aids including in-kind and financial donations and deployment of humanitarian workforce through PHAR according to DICT Assistant Secretary for Digital Philippines Emmanuel Rey Caintic.
The website also gives a brief yet detailed graph on the casualties of the CoVID-19 as powered and monitored by the Department Of Health (DOH). It also shows the number of facilities available to assist patients. Just in the National Capital Region (NCR), 180 facilities are available, and there are 4,318 occupied beds while 1,924 are still unoccupied.
The development of the PHAR website is in response to President Rodrigo R. Duterte’s directive to ensure transparency and accountability in managing and allocating resources in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. The DFA presented this to the Inter-Agency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases (IATF-MEID) during its meeting on 17 August 2020.
