Unparalleled callousness

“More appalling was the dumping of relief goods and rice to hide them from public view, such as in a deep pit in a remote village in Dagami town in Leyte.

Super typhoon “Yolanda” that hit on 8 November 2013 was the worst natural disaster that ever struck the country. In its aftermath, it also exposed the worst man-made catastrophe inflicted on Filipinos that was the incompetence and hubris of the previous yellow administration.

The Presidential Anti-Corruption Commission (PACC) is now preparing charges against government officials and contractors responsible for several projects funded by the huge kitty that was raised from government funds and foreign donors for supposed survivors of super typhoon “Yolanda.”

The PACC started the ball rolling with a complaint against 12 officials of the National Housing Authority (NHA) before the Office of the Ombudsman on 9 October while many more are expected to be filed later.

“This is just the tip of the iceberg,” PACC chairman Dante Jimenez said.

Indeed, it is as government records showed that trillions of pesos intended to rehabilitate and provide relief to Filipinos affected by “Yolanda” may have been carted away.

The efforts to exploit the government amid the adversity first came when former President Noynoy Aquino intervened to keep the casualty count to not more than 6,000 dead while in Tacloban City, Leyte alone, the victims littered the streets and were placed by independent accounts at more than 10,000.

The Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) under President Rody Duterte had estimated the donations that poured into the country reached P1.16 trillion and the audit the agency made showed that some P900 billion had vanished into thin air.

A total of P1,165,797,345.13 was received as donation from 11 November 2013 to 30 June 2016 under then Secretary Dinky Soliman who made no effort to coordinate and efficiently use funds allocated for the “Yolanda” victims.

A DSWD inspection of shelter projects also showed sloppy work. In Guian, Eastern Samar, for instance, the local government unit demolished temporary shelters to make way for a core shelter project.

While the reconstruction was ongoing, the typhoon survivors were deprived of any shelter due to the absence of transition houses.

The “Yolanda” anomalies appeared to be at its worst in the Emergency Shelter Assistance (ESA) cash program for survivors that may have been used as another fund for political patronage by the Liberal Party.

Barangay chairmen and other local government executives were granted power by the Department of the Interior and Local Government then to decide on ESA beneficiaries, including discretion on who gets the P30,000 for totally damaged homes and P10,000 for partially damaged residences.

Many survivors who lost their homes and should have received P30,000 only got P10,000.

More appalling was the dumping of relief goods and rice to hide them from public view, such as in a deep pit in a remote village in Dagami town in Leyte.

Soliman issued an idiotic response to inquiries about the incident, saying the relief goods were buried since these had become unfit for human consumption, which meant the relief items were left to rot while many typhoon victims starved.

“We wanted to make sure that these goods that were unfit for human consumption would not be given to the survivors,” Soliman had said.

The sacks of rice found in the pit bore markings of NFA (National Food Authority), but there were also plastic bags marked with DSWD.

Dumping of relief goods was prevalent. Some 900 sacks of rotten rice were also discovered in the compound of the “Yolanda”-damaged office of the Bureau of Customs Regional Office 8 in Tacloban City.

It was the height of ineptitude and corruption that resulted to the woeful abuse of suffering Filipinos six years ago that Noynoy and his men should account for.