Extortion modus reported

DSWD probes group behind 4Ps scam in Camiguin

CAGAYAN DE ORO The Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) in Northern Mindanao is now looking into reports that a group claiming to be election coordinators of President Rodrigo Duterte during the recent campaign season is using the agency’s name to ask for money to residents in the islandprovince of Camiguin to avail of loan package, rice and membership to the government’s conditional cash transfer program.

In a statement it sent to the media, the DSWD Northern Mindanao has clarified the group is not in any way connected to it, and that it has not asked for money to potential beneficiaries or regular members of the department’s Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program (4Ps), the government’s financial subsidy intended for the country’s poor families.

The DSWD-Northern Mindanao said the group has been going around Camiguin province offering 4Ps membership, loan, and free rice in exchange for a P100 fee.

Florylove Bentual, a DSWD-Northern Mindanao “provincial link” tasked with the 4Ps in Camiguin, said the group first started its operation in Guinsiliban, a town in the southern part of the island.

“They have conducted misinformation and have penetrated almost all of the seven villages in Guinsiliban,” Bentual said in a phone interview with this paper, adding the group has also entered Mambajao and Catarman towns.

What the group did, she said, is gather the residents in a village and convince those who are non-4Ps members to pay P100 for them to avail of loan package and rice the group promised, and also 4Ps membership.

Bentual said some of the group’s members were recognized by several 4Ps beneficiaries but the DSWD-Northern Mindanao could not yet give their names pending investigation by the agency.

Also, the people behind the group are using different names in going to barangays.

Early this week, the agency has conducted “recoreda” or information dissemination in the entire province warning people not to fall for this scheme and report to authorities any people who are engaged in this kind of activity.