The Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) is the vice-chair in National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management, it takes on a role on disaster response and early recovery and rehabilitation. One of its programs is the Emergency Shelter Assistance (ESA), a provision of financial assistance to affected families for their disaster-damaged houses. ESA has 2 categories. Partially and totally damaged houses. Totally damaged houses receive  ₱30,000 plus 10 days built-in Cash for Work (CFW) while  ₱10,000 plus 5 days built-in CFW for partially damaged houses. Rates of CFW varies, in which region III has  ₱300 per day.

Last year, Typhoons Ompong and Rosita caused destruction on Central Luzon wherein thousands of damaged houses were reported. DSWD immediately validated and assessed the houses for the provision of ESA. Validation for TY Ompong was on October 9-13 while TY Rosita was on November 6-10.

Fund allocation for ESA was ready since the first week of April, but downloading of funds to Local Government Units was not allowed and due to election ban, thus, the delayed of release.

On May 21, 2019, ESA for TY Ompong were released to  874 beneficiaries from the provinces of Bataan, Bulacan, Nueva Ecija, Tarlac and Zambales. Zambales has the large number of recipients, having 826. An amount of ₱34,000 were given to 150 totally damaged houses while ₱12,000 to 724 partially damaged houses. CFW for TY Ompong has a rate of ₱400 per day.

A week after the pay-out of ESA for TY Ompong, is the release of ESA for TY Rosita on May 27-29 The 116 (4 totally damaged houses and 112 partially damaged houses) ESA recipients are from the province of Aurora. The rate of CFW retains to ₱300 per day.

Quick disaster response is one of the 5 operational priorities of DSWD. The department works round the clock in times of disasters.

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