Bureaucratic nightmare hounds Yolanda survivors seeking gov’t aid
NEVER SAY DIE After losing everything in a triple whammy that included Supertyphoon “Yolanda,” retired police chief Casimiro Villas says he hasn’t lost hope. DANNY PETILLA/CONTRIBUTOR
MANILA, Philippines—Typhoon Yolanda (Haiyan) survivors Casimiro Villas and Papoose Lantajo, both residents of Palo, Leyte, are dumbfounded by the long list of requirements they have to submit to receive the death cash claims government offers for each relative who perished in the powerful storm.
The benefit aims to somehow ease the loss of loved ones in tragedies but Villas, Lantajo, and their neighbors feel it has become another burden to them.
In a recent phone interview with the Philippine Daily Inquirer, Villas listed down the documents he and his fellow survivors have been required to submit: a police blotter; a certification from the Municipal Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council (MDRRMC); a case study from the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD); barangay certification; and birth certificates of the claimants and the deceased.
“We were told that there was a memorandum from the OCD (Office of Civil Defense) that there are cash benefits for all those who have family members who died in Yolanda,” Villas said.
Villas, the former police chief of Palo, lost his wife, daughter, son-in-law, grandson, and sister in the storm. Before that, Villas lost in the elections in 2013, as well as his entire retirement money, after he invested it in a Ponzi scheme.
His tragic tale and unwavering courage was an Inquirer front page story on Jan. 5. He turned 59 years old last March 5. These days, he’s been busy helping his fellow survivors get back on their feet. He represents a group of fishermen at meetings with aid and government agencies.
Their appeal for government to ease the requirements for the death claims process is another advocacy for Villas now.
He wondered why the government would still ask for documents like birth certificates when obviously, these had been lost after their homes were washed away in the storm.
The OCD gives P10,000 for every fatality and P5,000 for the wounded.
The OCD spokesperson, Major Rey Balido, told the Inquirer that normally, those who were confined in a hospital for three days were the only ones eligible to receive the P5,000 cash benefit.
“In the case of those injured in Tacloban and other areas where even the hospitals were destroyed, those certified by the local health officers (to have sustained) major injuries (can receive the benefit),” Balido said in a text message.
Lantajo, the village captain of Brgy. San Joaquin, said the wounded were asked to submit a certification from the hospital or clinic where they sought treatment before the OCD would give them the cash benefit.
But San Joaquin was isolated for days, and Lantajo said the injured could not go anywhere else. Fortunately, he said, there were doctors and nurses in the neighborhood who were able to give them first aid.
Yolanda hit the Visayas on November 8, 2013. Considered the strongest typhoon to hit land, Yolanda left more than 6,000 dead and over 2,000 others missing.
“We don’t even know what the DSWD case study means,” Lantajo said in a separate phone interview.
Lantajo lost his 74-year-old father Gregorio, Sr., in the typhoon.
Lantajo said because the National Statistics Office (NSO) branches in Palo and Tacloban have remained closed to date, those who would like to get new birth certificates would have to travel to the NSO in Catbalogan, Samar, the next nearest office, some 100 kilometers away.
Lantajo, 48, said the residents might not even get their birth certificates within the day.
They end up dipping into the cash grants they have received from private foundations and the money they earned from the cash-for-work programs of government when every centavo is precious to them, according to Lantajo.
One would be spending some P500 a day just to travel to Catbalogan, wait at the NSO, buy food, pay for the new birth certificate, to name a few, Lantajo said. It’s an amount they would rather save or spend buying construction materials for their homes.
A resident of Iloilo City, Lucell Larawan, posted a petition on Change.org, an online petition tool, after learning of the Palo residents’ plight.
The petition asked OCD Executive Director Eduardo del Rosario “to stop requiring survivors to travel all the way to Catbalogan, Samar, just to reconstitute documents needed for death-claim applications.”
The petition has garnered nearly 4,000 signatures since Larawan posted it in February.
Del Rosario told the Inquirer by phone that he would look into the appeal, and talk to the OCD regional director.
He said the requirements should not be too stringent especially if the documents were obviously lost in the typhoon.
“There’s no reason for us to lie about our loss. There were 370 casualties in our village alone,” Lantajo said.
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