Tuesday, September 30, 2008 Church hits slow distribution of access cards
CARITAS Manila, the social arm of the archdiocese of Manila, will file a complaint against the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) for its slowness in giving out family access cards to poor families in Metro Manila.
"It's really a pity because the poor families are waiting for their access cards just so they can buy cheap rice," said Helen Oreto, operations head of Caritas Manila, over church-run Radio Veritas.
"Due to this, we are going to submit tomorrow (Tuesday) a complaint at the Religious Affairs Office of Secretary Nena Valdez in Malacañang to inform them that the DSWD is not doing its responsibility," Oreto added.
Oreto said they have long forwarded to the DSWD the family booklets of about 20,000 identified poor families in Metro Manila for the necessary bar codes and stickers.
"They (DSWD) gave Caritas Manila until September 30 to complete the 45,000 family booklets. But we only received the fax letter signed by DSWD Secretary Esperanza Cabral last September 26," she said.
"The problem is we cannot accomplish it within the given deadline because the backlog was not because of us, rather it is with the DSWD because they are too slow," she added.
Aside from them, 11 parishes also complained about the DSWD's slow processing of the card.
But Oreto vowed to do their best to immediately fill up the remaining 25,000 family booklets that they will later send to the DSWD for validation.
After addressing the rice shortage that hit the country recently, the National Food Authority (NFA) has decided to pull out the government-subsidized rice in public markets and just make it available to poor families who have been given family access cards by the DSWD. (MSN/Sunnex)
