WE HAVE all heard about the different schemes used during relief distribution after disasters in the past administration, especially during the aftermath of typhoon Yolanda. The repacking of goods, the distribution to give media attention on the giver: the politicians. Just about every attempt to make the hungry and suffering survivors indebted to the ones giving out the help.
But wait, no less than Social Welfare and Development Secretary Judy Taguiwalo is now telling us, this is all wrong and in fact is a criminal act.
While all the credit-grabbing and repacking were being done in the past, there was already the RA 10121 or the Philippine Disaster Risk Reduction and Management (DRRM) Act of 2010.
Under Section 10, RA 10121 prohibits the following: (g) Diverting or misdelivery of relief goods, equipment or other aid commodities to persons other than the rightful recipient or consignee; (h) Accepting, possessing, using or disposing relief goods, equipment or other aid commodities not intended for nor consigned to him/her; (i) Misrepresenting the source of relief goods, equipment or other aid commodities by: (1) Either covering, replacing or defacing the labels of the containers to make it appear that the goods, equipment or other aid commodities came from another agency or persons; (2) Repacking the goods, equipment or other aid commodities into containers with different markings to make it appear that the goods came from another agency or persons or was released upon the instance of a particular agency or persons; (3) Making false verbal claim that the goods, equipment or other and commodity its untampered original containers actually came from another agency or persons or was released upon the instance of a particular agency or persons; (j) Substituting or replacing relief goods, equipment or other aid commodities with the same items or inferior/cheaper quality.
For penalties for these acts, Section 20 states: “Any individual, corporation, partnership, association, or other juridical entity that commits any of the prohibited acts provided for in Section 19 of this Act shall be prosecuted and upon conviction shall suffer a fine of not less than Fifty thousand pesos (Php50,000.00) or any amount not to exceed Five hundred thousand pesos (php500,000.00) or imprisonment of not less than six (6) years and one (1) day or more than twelve (12) years, or both, at the discretion of the court, including perpetual disqualification from public office if the offender is a public officer, and confiscation or forfeiture in favor of the government of the objects and the instrumentalities used in committing any of herein prohibited acts.”
“If the offender is a corporation, partnership or association, or other juridical entity, the penalty shall be imposed upon the officer or officers of the corporation, partnership, association or entity responsible for the violation without prejudice to the cancellation or revocation of these entities license or accreditation issued to them by any licensing or accredited body of the government. If such offender is an alien, he or she shall, in addition to the penalties prescribed in this Act, be deported without further proceedings after service of the sentence.”
We're just leaving this out here for the people to know what to expect and what to look out for.