For the better part of Friday, the Philippine online community was buzzing over a blog post on EllaGanda.com lamenting the Department of Social Welfare and Development's handling of relief goods donated to typhoon victims. The blog post showed photos of "relief goods rotting in DSWD warehouses", allegedly still undelivered to victims due to the agency's lack of manpower.

When the blog became inaccessible, other sites such as Jenni Epperson's Mabuhaygirl.multiply.com and Gang Badoy's Abashet: What a glorious time to be free, reposted the original entry and photos. Filipino Internet users spread the word via social networks and microblogs such as Twitter, Facebook and Plurk, even making DSWD one of the top Trending Topics on Twitter for a time.

Here's an excerpt from the original EllaGanda.com blog post, which is back online as of this writing. The blog author has added a note informing readers that she is trying to fix the site, saying that most likely the sudden surge of traffic overwhelmed it.

I'm asking your help to spread the word. Tulungan po ninyo akong ikalat ito. Beyond this, we should also demand action. I disabled a plugin so you can copy the photos of relief goods rotting in DSWD warehouses. You can link this post to your blogs, facebook, websites etc. You can also email the photos.

Philippine News (US based Philippine newspaper) will use this as its front page story this week. Every Filipino has the right to know where the tons of donations from the UN and other counties go. Kahit po nakakahiya sa mga nag-donate. Kung sa ganitong paraan, matutulungan natin ang mga nasalanta, then by all means, let's do it.

Blogger, columnist and TV host Manuel L. Quezon III wrote this in his entry" "Flooded with relief":

But this is a far cry from the assumption many seem to be making, that something criminal has actually taken place. Surveying public opinion on Twitter, people seem upset on the following grounds:

1. The lack of a public call for volunteers.

2. Questions over what happens to relief goods, once the emergency passes.

Media's being urged to swoop down on the DSWD Warehouse at Chapel Road, Pasay City (at the back of the Air Transportation Office, towards NAIA II), and see what's actually going on.

Indeed, amid the online clamor, mainstream media wrote about the blog entry and interviewed DSWD Secretary Esperanza Cabral.

Here's an excerpt from the GMANews.TV story.

"Walang nabubulok. Stocks 'yun na hindi perishable (Nothing is rotting. Those stocks are non-perishable)," she said.

Cabral also explained the photos circulated from the blog showing towering boxes of relief goods, saying the stockpile in the warehouse stemmed from the outpouring of donations from various individuals and groups at the height of Ondoy and Pepeng.

Cabral said the relief goods would be used in case Typhoon Ramil, which has been forecast to hit Luzon on Sunday, causes another disaster.

She also said they cannot release the relief goods right away since they need to check on the items and make an inventory.

"This takes 2 to 3 hours to do," she said.

Another mainstream media outlet, ABS-CBN News Channel, also posted on Twitter its interview with Cabral via @ANCAlerts.

In this tweet, Cabral was quoted as saying: "It's true some relief goods are still in the warehouse, but there are no rotting goods."

A later tweet added: "(Q:The goods featured in the blog have been distributed as we speak?) Sec. Cabral: Yes."

As I and other Netizens have pointed out, however, Cabral keeps harping on the fact that the relief goods are not "rotting" because they are imperishable. While I will give the DSWD the benefit of the doubt, insisting that the goods aren't literally rotting when "rotting" was used figuratively (meaning they are gathering dust, so to speak, instead of being delivered to typhoon victims) just sounds like an attempt to evade the issue.

Perhaps this incident shows the level of distrust the public has for the Government, particularly since it was the private sector that led the way in providing assistance to the typhoon victims. We saw volunteerism in action, so how could the agency give the lack of manpower as an alleged excuse when, as the outpouring of support from ordinary citizens showed, so many people would have willingly repacked and distributed those goods in the DSWD warehouses?

Fairly or unfairly, the general perception is that the Government was caught unprepared by Ondoy (Ketsana), and that it failed to respond properly to the crisis. It appealed to foreign Governments for aid, so you can just imagine how those who saw the photos felt when these showed relief goods from the international community stacked high in that warehouse.

If anything, the online furor underscores how powerful a force social media can and should be, and how it could help mainstream media in its quest for the truth. Perhaps this will encourage the Government to become more transparent, knowing that vigilant citizens are always watching--offline and online.

 

TechAtHand
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