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Friday, March 29, 2024

Dinky admits DSWD failed to distribute aid properly

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SOCIAL Welfare Secretary Corazon Soliman admitted  Thursday  that some of her personnel were negligent and failed to properly distribute relief to survivors of Typhoon “Yolanda” two years ago, after it was discovered this week that they buried sacks of rotten rice in Dagami, Leyte.

Social Welfare Secretary Corazon Soliman

“I have ordered a thorough investigation… to find out who are liable and to file appropriate administrative charges against them, in accordance with civil service rules,” Soliman said, after she and her department came under fire for failing to bring prompt relief to typhoon survivors in the aftermath of Yolanda.

But Soliman said they buried the relief goods because they were unfit for human consumption, and they had a duty to ensure that survivors would not receive rotten food.

“We wanted to make sure that these goods that were unfit for human consumption would not be given to the survivors as a way of protecting their welfare,” Soliman said.

In acknowledging gaps and “human errors” in the department’s capacity to manage relief goods, she said the Department of Social Welfare and Development continued to find ways to improve its performance as part of the lessons learned from Yolanda in 2013.

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“This is why we continue to enhance our warehousing capacity,” she said.

Part of this efforts is the mechanized repacking system at the National Resource Operations Center in Pasay City, which was acquired in partnership with the World Food Program, Soliman said.

“The system enhances the capacity of the Department to repack 50,000 family food packs per day,” she said.

Senatorial candidate and Leyte Rep. Ferdinand Martin Romualdez and 1BAP Rep. Silvestre Bello III said the dumping of rotting rice—and the government’s inability to account for missing cash donations—showed that the government lacks compassion or malasakit  for the people.

At the Know your Candidates Forum at Aloha Hotel in Roxas Boulevard, Bello said two years after Yolanda devastated Eastern Visayas, the survivors as well as donors were still raising the same question to the DSWD and Soliman: Where did the billions go?

Bello said the survivors complained that instead of the donated imported corned beef and Spam, the relief goods they received were local 555 corned beef and sardines.

The mishandling of relief goods and donations has undermined the faith of foreign and local donors, the two lawmakers said.

“It is quite telling that after two years, the DSWD has not been transparent and despite the Commission on Audit’s discovery of cash donations amounting to more than P300 million not being disbursed, the government still has to account for it and for the billions that had been donated by local and foreign donors,” said Romualdez, whose district that includes Tacloban City, which was among the hardest hit by Yolanda.

Bello said he could not understand where the DSWD brought the billions in donations and why the government was quiet about it.

Bello said one week after Yolanda struck, the 1BAP immediately went to Tacloban City and Eastern Visayas provinces to distribute relief goods.

“We have heard not only from Yolanda survivors but also from [Typhoon] ‘Lando’ victims the same complaint that we have heard two years ago, that they could not see where the relief goods were brought, that the donations from other countries were replaced by local goods and now we hear hundreds of thousands of sacks of rice rotting and being buried and hidden from the public,” Bello said. “Most especially, where did the billions in donations go? Why can’t the government account for it?”

Romualdez said everything boiled down to inefficiency and non-transparency in addressing the handling and distribution of goods and money.

“For the past two years, we have been asking the government to account for the billions in local and foreign donations to no avail. The new normal now is we will be hit by even stronger typhoons and earthquakes and God forbid, who from among the donors would trust that their donations of goods and money would go to the rightful recipients?” Romualdez said.

In Tacloban City, an alliance of Yolanda survivors lambasted the government over the sacks of rotten rice dumped in Dagami.

“Once again, Department of Social Welfare and Development Secretary Dinky Soliman proves how heartless she is, for deliberately allowing such goods intended for the storm survivors to go to waste. Worse is when she tries to hide her stinking mess,” said Efleda Bautista, chairperson of the People Surge alliance.

“We challenge Dinky Soliman to eat at least a pinch of those spoiled goods, for those could have averted the death of storm survivors who died of hunger after Yolanda, and yet it was deliberately left to rot,” she added.

Last week, policemen in Dagami were alerted of an on-going disposal of sacks of rice marked National Food Authority and DSWD in an excavated hole at the village of Macaalang.

DSWD Regional Director Nestor Ramos admitted that the sacks of rice were from their office.

In a local television report here in the city, Ramos said that the rice were intended for the victims of Typhoon Ruby in December for three provinces in Samar and not for the victims of Yolanda.

Also on Thursday, Senator Ferdinand Marcos Jr. called for an investigation into the reported dumping.

“Rice dumping is suspicious at the very least,” said Marcos. He noted that the NFA had earlier announced that spoiled rice may still be used as animal feed.

“I’ll await the findings of the concerned agencies and local authorities but if I’m not satisfied we will dig deeper into this matter,” he added.

“Wasting rice is disgusting enough but if it turns out that these are relief goods, then it’s even more appalling. Somebody should answer for this,” Marcos said.

Earlier, Marcos lamented the slow pace of the government’s rehabilitation efforts in areas hardest hit by Yolanda despite billions of pesos allocated in the budget and from international donors.

“What is disgusting is the government’s refusal to explain how the funds for Yolanda victims were spent!” Marcos said.

“This government does not feel the need to explain themselves in any way; never mind the tens of thousands that still live in makeshift homes, never mind that people have no jobs or source of livelihood,” he added.

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