WESTERN VISAYAS, Philippines – Following alleged anomalous activities on the implementation of the Emergency Shelter Assistance (ESA) in Western Visayas, the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD)-Field Office VI through its Regional Grievance Committee has organized nine Fact Finding Teams to investigate the cases.
The DSWD-Field Office received 96 complaints such as inclusion of ineligible beneficiaries and exclusion of qualified beneficiaries from the masterlist, delayed distribution of the shelter aid, and exploitation of beneficiaries by loan sharks, among others. Of the 96 cases, the Field
Office referred 13 cases to the Resident Ombudsman who is now investigating the cases. Likewise, 20 cases are now considered closed after the Field Office clarified the issues with the complainants. Members of the fact finding teams continue to investigate the rest of the cases.
DSWD Secretary Corazon Juliano-Soliman reiterated that the Department will find out the alleged perpetrators of the anomalous activities and will file appropriate criminal and administrative charges against them. Sec. Soliman added that to put a stop to the abuses on the program, the distribution of the shelter assistance will be completed on or before September 10.
“Our DSWD-Field Offices and concerned LGUs continue to sit down to thresh out complaints from the beneficiaries and we immediately address these to ensure that there will be no more further delay in the distribution of the cash grants,”
Sec. Soliman added. As of August 19, a total of 717,404 families from Regions IV-B, VI, VII, and VIII have received their assistance out of the 966,341 target families.
This is approximately 82 percent completed. Of this, 291,488 families out of the 449,127 families with totally damaged houses have received P30,000 shelter assistance amounting to P8.74 billion. On the other hand, 425,916 families out of the 517,214 families with partially damaged houses have been provided their P10,000 shelter assistance totaling to P4.25 billion. In Western Visayas alone, some 453,968 families with totally and partially damaged houses have been targeted as ESA beneficiaries.
Of this, a total of 411,313 families, as of August 19, have received their assistance amounting to P7.2 billion. Sec. Soliman stressed that if there are cases that went awry, these are isolated and only constitute a small portion as indicated by the number of beneficiaries who have received their assistance without any problem. The Secretary said that the Department continues to uphold the principles of transparency and accountability. The Department urges the public to immediately report any irregularity that they know of to the nearest DSWD-Field Office.
Investigation of alleged anomalies on ESA ongoing
