DSWD spends P113 M in Zamboanga relief operation

4 October 2013

ZAMBOANGA CITY – The Department of Social Welfare and Development has spent P113.189 million in relief assistance, of which about 80 percent were food items, as evacuees continued to stay at the different evacuation centers, uncertain of their return to their coastal villages.

Narrabelle Z. Bue, information officer at the DSWD regional office here,said the money was the accumulated amount from its relief operation that start as soon as residents abandoned in droves their villages along the city's coastal slums on September 9, when the first exchange of gunfires was recorded.

A big portion of the relief was also being carried out by the United Nations’ World Food Program, said Elmer E. Apolinario, the city assistant administrator told BusinessMirror.

 

The DSWD was already preparing the budget for its emergency shelter and permanent shelter assistance to evacuees, the design of which were patterned after those implemented early this year for victims of  supertyphoon Pablo in Compostela Valley and Davao Oriental.

But the office admitted it could not implement the appropriate housing program until the city government could sound off its decision on whether to allow the return of evacuees or to relocate them.  The DSWD said the design of houses would be determined whether they would be built on site or in relocation centers.

Apolinario said that the city officials would still determine if the depopulated barangays have titled lots in them, although he said initial information indicates that private lots and government lands were in the area. "It would be either relocation for residents living in these titled properties, or they are allowed to go back to the untitled lots where they built their houses," he said.

Luzviminda Mindros Ballaho, a barangay health worker of Rio Hondo and who coordinated the reilief and welfare of the residents of the barangay, said her family of six would try to ascertain the veracity of the alleged title of a 6,000 square meter-lot named to the relative of his husband.

Evacuees queue for water ration

“If that is located, then we would go back to Rio Hondo,” she said. Otherwise, the only option left to her family is to migrate to Davao City, where she once lived with her brothers in a barangay near Bankerohan Public Market.

Sports complex turns into biggest evacuation camp

She said that the evacuees could not decide on where to go to ease out living conditions in the Joaquin F. Enriquez Memorial Sports Complex, that the Department of Social Welfare and Development documented 25,304 evacuees, comprising the 5,350 families from all the affected barangays.

Ballaho said that aside from the four heavily affected barangays, five adjacent barangays all along the southern coast of the city, were also abandoned immediately after MNLF and government forces engaged themselves in gunbattle on September 9 in Santa Catalina district.

The number of affected and displaced persons kept changing.  A DSWD October 3 status report listed 59,376 persons from 14 barangays seeking refuge in 35 evacuation centers, including in the sports complex.

In that status report, the DSWD said it accounted 54 evacuation centers at the height of the conflict, hosting 76,419 persons.

But in its October 4 posting at its website, it said that 23,794 families or 118,819 persons have been affected by the crisis. “Of this number, 18,432 families or 98,789 persons are still staying in 35 evacuation centers. Families outside evacuation centers or those who are staying in their friends’ or relatives’ houses number 3,153 families with 9,462 persons”.

Meanwhile, local and international aid and welfare agencies held an inter-cluster meeting on Friday to reach a common understanding and response to the post-conflict crisis in Zamboanga City.

Cases of gender abuse and a brewing nightmare on health and sanitation condition in the evacuation centers have occupied some of the major concern in the evacuation camps.

Bue confirmed the reported case of a six-year-old child molested by its 35-year-old uncle in their tent in the sports complex. A criminal case was already filed at the court.

Although the DSWD listed only this single case, other organizations like the Save the Children said cases were reported on young boys engaged in paid sex with gay clients. “They engaged in sex inside the rest rooms of the sports complex, and maybe some or many of them do it outside,” said Ariel Balofinos, team leader of Save the Children in the Zamboanga Crisis Response operation.

He said there was also a case of seven-year-old boy inserting something on the sex organ of a six-year-old girl. “We still have to ascertain these reports, of whether or not it was part of child’s play, or was the boy influenced by what he saw in the movies or video footages,” he added.

“We don’t really need numbers by now. All we need to be concerned is that these things are happening, and we have to act,” he said.

The DSWD said that it has already coordinated with the police on enforcing strict security on the evacuation camps.

The DSWD and other international NGOs said however, that there were no reports of illegal recruitment and trafficking although the Davao City-based Mindanao Migrants Center for Empowering Action, Inc. (MMCEAI) suggested to the DSWD, the city government and the private welfare organizations to install a mechanism to spot possible attempts by illegal recruiters and prevent trafficking from being concluded right inside the evacuation centers.

The MMCEAI said that illegal recruitment and trafficking were happening in all the instances of evacuations during armed conflict and natural disasters like typhoon Sendong and Pablo in Mindanao, and warned that a similar trend may likely happen in the post-armed conflict in Zamboanga City.

The DSWD said it has not monitored yet any incidence, nor did the other welfare and aid groups. The DSWD said however, that its social workers were already briefed on this “as this is already flagged as one of the things to watch out for”.

But City Assistant Administrator, Apolinario, said this was the first time that this was raised as a major concern and told MMCEAI coordinator, Eman Jovellanos, that he would raise the issue in the next coordination meeting.

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