Pro-admin solon slams DSWD over Yolanda housing aid mess

Corrupt local officials and employees of the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) have been shortchanging super-typhoon Yolanda victims and survivors of millions of pesos in funding assistance for the rebuilding of destroyed homes.

Iloilo Rep. Niel Tupas Jr. made this accusation as he supported the call for a congressional probe into the implementation of the multi-billion peso Emergency Shelter Assistance (ESA) program being conducted jointly by the DSWD and various local government units in Yolandadevastated areas.

Tupas, chairman of the House Committee on Justice, filed House Resolution 2394 directing appropriate House committees to conduct an investigation, in aid of legislation, into the alleged anomalies committed by officials in implementing the ESA.

Earlier, Anakpawis party-list Rep. Fernando Hicap filed House Resolution No. 2322 seeking to look into the “unreasonable restrictive guidelines, cases of political abuse and anomaly in the implementation of the shelter program” of the DSWD in calamity areas.

Tupas said complaints against irregularities in the distribution of ESA benefits were brought to his attention by thousands of his constituents.

He cited the gross incompetence of DSWD personnel, including those directly under Secretary Corazon Soliman, as the subject of numerous complaints.

The lawmaker lashed at detractors for accusing him of engaging in politics after he was allegedly spotted in an ESA distribution event in his Iloilo congressional district.

Sen. Francis Escudero deplored the act, saying that Tupas’s action can be considered a defiance of a Supreme Court ruling prohibiting post enactment intervention in the budget.

The ESA program provides cash assistance of 30,000 and 10,000 to families whose houses were totally or partially damaged by Yolanda.

“Beneficiaries in several barangay complained of receiving a measly fraction of their entitlements due to technical malversation of funds,” the administration lawmaker stated.

He said many qualified beneficiaries were excluded from the original list of qualified beneficiaries for refusing to cooperate with corrupt project officials.