BAGUIO CITY? Finance Secretary Margarito Teves said the government has $3 billion (P138.7 billion) in pledges and about $1.4 billion (P64.7 billion) to $2 billion (P92.5 billion) in consolidated public sector capital to fund the restoration and rehabilitation of farms and communities ravaged by strong typhoons in September and October.

But Teves may need to raise more because feedback from local investors and economists in calamity-stricken Cordillera showed that government should develop new and more expensive road systems and other facilities that can endure extreme weather, said Budget Undersecretary Laura Pascual.

Teves led a post-disaster economic rehabilitation road show in Dagupan City on Thursday and here on Friday to draw the cooperation of local businessmen in financing or monitoring the restoration effort in Luzon.

Teves, chair of the Special National Public Reconstruction Commission, said the successive storms??Ondoy? and ?Pepeng? ?cost the country P217 billion in damages and opportunity losses, which represent 2.7 percent deducted from the gross domestic product (GDP) this year.

The Department of Finance found the heaviest damage in Metro Manila (P28.1 billion), Southern Tagalog (P20.7 billion) and the Cordillera (P3.8 billion), Teves said.

The heaviest economic and social losses were traced in Southern Tagalog (P55.8 billion), Central Luzon (P37.7 billion) and Metro Manila (P23.9 billion), he said. Vincent Cabreza and Yolanda Sotelo, Inquirer Northern Luzon