Sri Lanka donated USD 25,000 to the Philippines for rehabilitation of homes of the victims of Typhoon, ‘Bhopa’ which claimed several hundreds of lives and destroyed properties worth millions last December.
 
The External Affairs Ministry said that Ambassador of Sri Lanka to the Philippines Nawalage Bennet Cooray, conveyed personal condolences of President Mahinda Rajapaksa to the Government of the Philippines over loss of lives on 12th December, 2012 and pledged on behalf of the President Sri Lanka’s support for a housing rehabilitation programme.

A sum of USD 25,000 approved by the Government of Sri Lanka was donated to the Department of Social Welfare and Development as a token of friendship and the cheque was presented to Foreign Secretary of the Republic of the Philippines Hon. Albert F. Del Rosario by Ambassador Cooray at the Department of Foreign Affairs in Manila on 27th February, 2013.
 
Foreign Minister Rosario, while acknowledging the donation recalled with gratitude Sri Lanka’s friendship and solidarity demonstrated just a year ago, through another donation made after the typhoon “Sendong” which disrupted the lives of Mindanao people during the month of December 2011.

In December, 2012 lives of thousands of Filipino people living in Compostela Valley in Davao province in the Philippines were severely disrupted by typhoon ‘Bhopa’.