President Duterte asked the local chief executives of the areas ravaged by Typhoon Odette to give the government more time to come up with the money to help them return to normal as he explained anew that most of the country's funds went to the fight against COVID-19.

Duterte made the statement as he pledged P2 billion to help the victims of the typhoon that caused severe damage to parts of Visayas and Mindanao late last week.

In a situation briefing in Maasin City, Leyte on Saturday, the President asked for understanding as the government will need some time to come up with the funds.

He said he already called for a meeting to resolve this issue.

"Ang importante ani --- di na lang ta mag-istorya og dugay nga naay hinabang. Give us a little bit of time kay pasira na ang --- pasira na ang tuig, ang budget, unya katong atong dako nga pondo, nahurot gyud sa COVID (The important thing is --- let’s not talk about how long the help will arrive. Give us a little bit of time because the year is about to end, the budget, and a big chunk of our funds was spent on COVID)," he said.

"Walay limit hangtod karon basta kinahanglan sa tawo. So mao nay among trabahoon pag-abot ugma. I... Nagpatawag ko og meeting sa mga budget karon. Human na man mi gabii sa selected, a few sa Cabinet (There’s no limit even until now for as long as the people need it. So that’s what we’re going to work on tomorrow. I called for a meeting with the Budget team today. I already met with a few of my Cabinet members last night)," he added.

Duterte explained to the local leaders that it will take some time because of the number of paperwork they have to accomplish.

"Tagai lang mi’g gamay ng panahon kay itong gobyerno mapapel. Kada lihok nimo there's a layer of papel nga... Mao ning sa gobyerno (Just give us a bit more time because there’s a lot of paperwork in government. For every move you make, there’s a layer of papers that... Government works that way)," he said.

"Og imo pong dali-dalion, mas masabit ka pud. Mao nay nakadaot anang wala gyuy ingong klaro nga kanang immediate nga mabuhian nimo ang kwarta dayon (And if you try to rush things, you may face deeper problems. That’s the problem because we can’t release the budget immediately). You have to go into a process ," he added.

According to the President, he will need to cut the budget of all the appropriations available, especially those that were not being used or the projects that were not doing so well.

"Tagtagan ko na lang ‘to. Kaponon ko na lang nang uban (I’ll just remove some funds from that. I’ll reduce the budget of others)," he said.

"Pero katong projects nga hinay hangtod karon niabot na lang last or fourth quarter wala pa kaayo’y... Ah ituli, tuli-a ng uban diha, igo lang na itabang ngari (But the projects that are a bit slow, those that haven’t achieved much in the last quarter, those should be reduced so the money can be used here)," he added.

On Friday evening, President Duterte admitted that the government was still trying to raise the money to help the people affected by the typhoon as most of the country's funds went to the COVID-19 response efforts.

"We are trying to raise the money... Alam mo, depleted and budget natin (You know, our budget was depleted) immensely because of COVID," he confessed.

"Naubos talaga ang pera natin (We're out of funds). We prioritized the expenses," he added.