DSWD says not its mandate to vet ex-rebels for benefits

The Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) said Thursday it receives the list of ex-rebels from other agencies and that it does not have the  capacity to vet them when they are added as its beneficiaries. 

DSWD Secretary Rex Gatchalian made the position after Kabataan party-list lawmaker Raoul Manuel asked whether the DSWD verifies the ex-rebels who receive aid from the agency.

Manuel cited the Commission on Audit's 2021 annual audit report on the DSWD that said its office in Caraga failed to prove that the P5.32 million in cash assistance it disbursed in 2020 indeed went to 330 ex-rebels.  

“Let me clarify that the list of these former combatants does not come from us, it comes from OPAPRU and the NTF-ELCAC, depending on the programs [involved]. We cannot verify it because we don’t have the technical expertise on this,” Gatchalian said. 

He was referring to the Office of the Presidential Adviser on Peace, Reconciliation and Unity and the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict.  

“That is not in our mandate, and that is not in our jurisdiction. We rely on these specialized agencies and assume regularity in the list they give us. We assume that they have the data, and already did the vetting,” Gatchalian added.

“Our job is to make sure that we do the payout, and we do the support programs, and we do the case management after,” he said. 

Manuel, in response, said the DSWD should still take the initiative in verifying the list since it is the agency that disburses public funds for such aid.  

“I strongly suggest that the DSWD should not presume regularity in these agencies. DSWD can do even random sampling,  to check on the [veracity of the] list because it is on record that parts of the assistance went to unqualified supposed ex-rebels,” Manuel said. 

Gatchalian said that the DSWD will look into Manuel’s suggestions but also emphasized that such a measure would entail more work for the social workers already swamped with tasks. 

“We don’t have the technical expertise to go about that, and we would be saddling our social workers with more work. But we assure you that we will look into it and talk to our partner agencies to see the severity of this situation,” the DSWD chief said. 

In a separate interpellation, Lanao del Norte Representative Khalid Dimaporo also took DSWD to task over the disbursement of government assistance to ex-rebels.

“I will  place it on the record, in the form of point order, so that Secretary Rex can hear it, that the MILF [Moro Islamic Liberation Front] has not been decommissioned in the province of Lanao del Norte. In the last Congress, when we discussed it with the MILF leaders, they said the one to blame is the DSWD,” Dimaporo said. 

“DSWD is very slow in doing the case study. I would like clarification on this,” Dimaporo added.

Gatchalian said he will reach out to Dimaporo for more details and vowed to address the Lanao del Norte legislator’s concern. — BM, GMA Integrated News