Sen. Francis Escudero. INQUIRER FILE PHOTO
Senator Francis “Chiz” Escudero dared the administration on Tuesday to give “Yolanda”-affected families some P660 a day or a long-term stay at a resort “if only to show the government’s consistency and sincerity in helping our homeless brothers and sisters.”
Escudero issued the challenge amid the government’s reported attempt to hide the street dwellers in Metro Manila from leader’s attending the upcoming Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (Apec) meeting by offering them P4,000 to rent a temporary home from November 15 to 20.
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“That’s about P660 a day for the six days that they have to go into hiding and stay away from the public eye so that our foreign visitors will not get to see the true state of the poor Filipino families,” he said in a statement.
The senator said there is something “severely wrong” when the government can provide immediate financial assistance for the relocation of Manila’s street dwellers while more than 200,000 families who survived Super Typhoon Yolanda two years ago continue to languish in temporary shelters.
The Apec solution, he said, was a “more brazen yet quick patchwork” compared to the decision of the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) in Pope Francis’ visit to the Philippines last January to take these urban families to a resort in Cavite.
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“Kung noon may seminar-seminar pa, ngayon straight away pera na lang (If before, there was a seminar, now they’re just distributing cash),” said Escudero.
But Malacanang through Deputy Presidential Spokesperson Abigail Valte defended the move to give homeless families P4,000 each, saying it was part of the DSWD’s modified CCT (conditional cash transfer).
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Escudero then quoted Valte as saying: “Iyong pagtulong po ng DSWD ay hindi po limited sa tuwing mayroong malaki pong event; Ngunit nakikita po natin itong pagkakataon na simulan ’yung pagtulong sa kanila para makapag-transition naman po sila from the streets into dignified living quarters.”
(DSWD’s aid to the homeless is not limited during big events only; We also see it as an opportunity to help the homeless transition from living in the streets to having dignified living quarters.)
Given Valte’s explanation, Escudero put Malacañang to task for failing to make a dent on its huge shortfall in providing permanent shelters to some 205,128 families who survived Supertyphoon Yolanda (international name: Haiyan) in 2013.
He noted the government’s claim that it has only been able to transfer 298 of those families to permanent shelters. IDL