Lina Sarmiento, chair of the Human Rights Victims Claims Board. INQUIRER FILE PHOTO
MANILA, Philippines–Victims the second time around.
Some unscrupulous individuals have been collecting fees from people seeking reparations from the government for the abuses they suffered during the Marcos regime, the chair of the Human Rights Victims Claims Board said on Sunday.
Lina Sarmiento said the board discovered the scam during its caravan to Angeles City last week where claimants told them that fixers had been going around their communities selling application forms for P300 each.
She said the con artists also promised those who bought the application forms that they would be included in the final list of claimants.
“We still have to find out how they were able to sell these forms. We were told that one of them has been claiming to be an employee of the Commission on Human Rights,” Sarmiento told reporters.
Sarmiento, a retired police director, said she had sought the assistance of the Philippine National Police in identifying and arresting individuals collecting money from the claimants.
She reiterated that the application forms were being distributed for free by the board, which was created by law to distribute the P10 billion in compensation that a Swiss court had awarded to martial law victims in 1997.
“This should serve as a warning to the human rights victims against some people who want to take advantage of this,” she said.
Sarmiento said the application forms may be downloaded from the board’s official website (www.hrvclaimsboard.gov.ph) or could be obtained from the regional offices of the Commission on Human Rights.
The board launched the provincial caravan after only a small number of human rights victims from 1972 to 1986 applied for compensation for the suffering they endured during the dictatorship of the late strongman Ferdinand Marcos.
Since the filing of claims started on May 12, Sarmiento said that fewer than 500 martial law victims had submitted the required documents.
Over 9,000 individuals are entitled to receive part of the P10-billion fund from the recovered ill-gotten wealth of the Marcos family.