DAVAO CITY – Gabriela Women’s Party calls for the Department of Social Welfare and Development to investigate its warehouses after the agency’s admission of dumping sacks of rotten rice in Leyte.
Reports earlier said that the DSWD Region 8 had admitted to have buried 284 sacks of rotten rice which were intended for relief operations.
Representative of GWP Emmi De Jesus of GWP said that the doings of the DSWD “is a big scandal given that this has been done in the middle of extensive hunger.”
De Jesus said that Social Welfare Secretary Corazon Soliman of DSWD should be held accountable “on her failures and her continuing lies”.
GWP already filed a resolution in April 2014 where they sought for an “on-site investigation on the reported dumping of relief goods intended for Typhoon Yolanda survivors and to conduct an on-site inspection of all DSWD warehouses in Yolanda-hit areas.”
The group said that the resolution is still in pending status with the Committee on Rules.
De Jesus claimed that policies and procedures imposed by the DSWD “are inflicting sufferings on the victims of calamities and wasting funds of taxpayers and well-meaning donors.”
“[President] Aquino’s matuwid na daan is a marker of cruelty and insensitivity on not giving the relief and emergency cash on the victims of calamities,” De Jesus added. (davaotoday.com)
