Stealing Foreign Donations For Typhoon Victims is a Crime Against Humanity

The nobility of the human race and the civilized world was its best days after Yolanda struck Leyte and Samar. Nations, non government organizations and civic groups here and abroad came to help the victims of the world’s strongest typhoon so far that landed on earth.

Yolanda may have flooded Leyte and Samar but the aid all over the world also flooded the list of donors. President Aquino proudly informed us on national television and newspapers of the list of nations who pledged and sent aids in cash.

There were those who aside from donating cash also personally came to help, nations such as South Korea (the last to leave, they left before Christmas last year, I saw them being sent home with tears by the great Waray Waray people of Tacloban), United States (I saw them arrive at the Daniel Romualdez Airport in Tacloban City, Leyte), not to be outdone were the British, who came with their huge C130’s, their Australian cousins also came alongside with many others.

The tent cities, were a literally a United Nations gathering, tents bearing the flags of the donor nations clearly seen atop the tents given to the victims.

But a lingering question havocs the people of Samar and Leyte, where did the money announced by President Aquino go? The issue raised by the Commission on Audit on the failure of the Department of Social Welfare and Development to liquidate the funds for Leyte and Samar is not just the issue, it is more than that. The 4ps and the Conditional Cash Transfer has long been and repeatedly been unaccounted since 2011 a year after it has been introduced.

The question is, how could the DSWD account for the aids given by foreign countries and donors if it could not even account for the government funds allocated for the Typhoon victims of Leyte and Samar?

Since President Aquino boasts of transparency and good governance, it is time for the government to make an accounting of the list of the nation donors and the amount they actually sent and the corresponding liquidation of how the money were spent.

It is the duty of the President through his Secretary of Social Works to face the victims of Typhoon Yolanda to tell them and make a truthful inventory of the foreign donations. It is very unfortunate, that the heroes of the Typhoon Yolanda that are imprinted on the minds and hearts of the victims were not of our government but of foreign blood and flags. The DSWD painfully has been perceived as villains and not the heroes, allegations of swapping, as there was a time it was called as Department of Swapping World Donations when a catsup was replaced upon repacking of a packed food kit from our Asian neighbor nation.

The failure of DSWD to account government funds may rise to violations of the Anti Graft and Practices Act under Philippine Laws but the failure to account and logical consequence of have it stolen of foreign donation is simply A CRIME AGAINST HUMANITY. The International Criminal Court does not only prosecute genocide by murder of a race or ethnic group but others of similar means.

Stealing donations from member nations of the United Nations for victims of a calamity, specifically a race or region, this time the great Waray Waray people is a CRIME AGAINST HUMANITY, if the Commission on Audit refuse to make accountable DSWD for the failure to account the foreign donations maybe it is high time for the victims to ask the United Nations to require the DSWD to make such accounting, if it will fail to accurately account, the officials like those of the Cabinet Secretaries must be prosecuted together with those accused of mass murders in countries and regions in Europe and Africa.

It is not the fault of President Aquino that typhoon struck Leyte and Samar, the fault is not promptly responding to the cry of the victims and the crime is failure to make accountable and transparent the duties and responsibilities of his alter ego of making an accounting of the donation it received in behalf of the victims.

About the Author: Clarence Paul V. Oaminal is a lawyer and author of ‘The Textbook on The Comprehensive Dangerous Drugs Act of 2002’. He is the Vice-chairman and Undersecretary of the Dangerous Drugs Board and is the current adviser and presiding officer of Cebu City Anti-Drug Abuse Council. He also hosts the local advocacy program ‘Krimen ug Drugas’ in CCTN Channel 47.