MANILA, Philippines—
Social Welfare Secretary Dinky Soliman: Not walking
INQUIRER.net FILE PHOTO
“Colleagues in government give me strength,” Soliman told the international humanitarian partners in a briefing on Eastern Samar and Leyte on Friday when asked how she felt about the criticism hurled against the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) for the way it was packing relief goods and distributing them in the days following the supertyphoon on Nov. 8.
Soliman said she and the other government officials involved in post-Yolanda relief and reconstruction were under heavy pressure but reassurances from colleagues like Local Government Secretary Mar Roxas, Defense Secretary Voltaire Gazmin and the others on the ground kept her going.
“I draw strength from my colleagues in government and the other organizations working together to help the victims,” she said.
At the briefing, Soliman updated stakeholders on the progress of relief operations and the programs for the early recovery and rehabilitation of devastated areas.
Early recovery includes cash-for-work and cash-for-training programs, critical incident stress debriefing, educational assistance, and women and child-friendly spaces.
Rehabilitation includes the construction of temporary bunkhouses and emergency shelter assistance and permanent shelter assistance. A sustainable livelihood program will be undertaken to help survivors recover economically.
Lesson learned
“We will provide materials to rebuild their houses. However, we stressed to the local governments that new shelters must be built 40 meters from the shoreline at high tide after we learned our lesson from past typhoons,” Soliman said.
The recovery and rehabilitation programs, she said, involved not only the DSWD but other agencies such as the departments of Labor and Employment, Agriculture, Health, Education and international organizations.
Soliman said stress debriefing was being conducted by the DSWD and Department of Health, noting the importance of psychological intervention after several survivors, particularly mothers who lost their children, suffered trauma as a result of their experiences.
Soliman also reminded parents not to entrust their children to just anyone when they find they cannot cope with the situation they are in.
Traffickers
“Do not give your children to others you do not know well, or even your relatives. Know the details of what is going to be done to the children,” she said.
She reiterated the warning following reports of human traffickers trolling evacuation centers for children and minors to exploit.
The DPWH and the United Nations Children’s Fund (Unicef), meanwhile, are keeping tabs on the orphans left by the storm, Soliman said.
“We are tracking those taking care of children not their own. We won’t get the kids but they have to be registered. We have to know how many have been orphaned,” she said.
3M packs
She said a stress debriefing team from the DSWD Central Office was in Tacloban City to look into the children’s situation.
She also thanked the over 100,000 volunteers who helped the DSWD pack relief goods.
To date, the department has given out 3,009,076 food packs in Tacloban City, 40 towns in Leyte, 14 towns in Eastern Samar, Biliran Island and Western Samar, Soliman said.
“We are already on the 10th round of food distribution,” she added.
As of Dec. 12, the DSWD had received P54,785,427.52 in local donations and $14,727,795.67 in foreign donations, she said.