Evacuees missing DSWD help
LEGAZPI CITY – Where's the DSWD?
More than three weeks since Mayon Volcano erupted, the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) is yet to make its presence felt for tens of thousands of evacuees here.
Sources from the provincial government of Albaysaid the DSWD has not yet distributed relief goods for the evacuees whose number has reached its peak of more than 85,000 for the entire last week.
“They told us that they would take over after 10 days of local government units' spending on the needs of the evacuees. But up to now, we are yet to hear something from them,” a source said.
It was recalled that the local government units have expressed that their savings from last year's Internal Revenue Allotment (IRA) could only cover 10 days of expenses of the evacuees.
Residents living within the danger zone started to flock to evacuation centers on January 15 and its original number of more or less 30,000 has ballooned to some 85,000 after Alert Level 4 was hoisted over Mayon Volcano on January 22.
“Mayon's eruption could be over soon but the assistance from the DSWD has not yet been downloaded,” another source said.
“The DSWD people should shape up because they will certainly be a laughingstock here if their assistance would come after the Mayon's eruption is already over,” the source added.
As a result of the slow response, the provincial government of Albay has to maximize what the Provincial Social Welfare and Development has and the donations from non-government organizations.
Fortunately, the depleting funds of the local government units was augmented by the 170-million fund from President Duterte and another 15 million from the Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office.
Presidential Adviser on Political Affairs Francis Tolentino, President Duterte's Mayon Volcano crisis manager, also confirmed the slow response of the DSWD regional office of Bicol.
Sources said DSWD Bicol regional director Arnel Garcia was one of the two agencies heads castigated by Tolentino for slow response during a meeting on Wednesday.
A report from the DSWD head office said that last Friday, DSWD-Bicol Region released additional 34,592 family food packs worth 113,905,984 to eight municipalities in Albay, bringing to 132,833,008 the total augmentation as- sistance of DSWD to the affected local government units.
The DSWD has even denied reports that it distributed expired relief goods to Mayon evacuees.
Meanwhile, in the same meeting with Tolentino, it was found out that the DSWD has not even conducted its own profiling of the evacuees that they target to enroll in its cash-for-work program.
The DSWD had to borrow the data of the regional Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) which immediately finished its own profiling of evacuees for its own cash-for-work program.
The DOLE has rolled out P30 million for its cash-for-work program and has released its first payout Saturday.
The DSWD, on the other hand, has a budget of P60 million for its cash-forwork program but sources here said that it has not yet started its own version of the program.
The DSWD regional office also became a source of the delay of the Wednesday meeting as its representative did not carry with him the documents on the memorandum of agreement for its cash-for-work program.
And when the documents to be signed finally arrived, the format of the MOA was that of the Marawi City siege. (Aaron B. Recuenco with a report from Ellalyn de Vera Ruiz)