The Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) will provide legal assistance to the family of the woman with mental health condition who was made to discredit Pasig City Mayor Vico Sotto in a viral video posted on Facebook.

This was assured by DSWD Secretary Rex Gatchalian in an interview with ANC’s Headstart on Thursday (April 10.)

“Our legal team is looking into the angle of who did this, where it was done, and we will make sure that we exhaust all legal remedies to make these people accountable,” Secretary Gatchalian told news anchor Katrina Domingo during the interview.

Should the victim’s family file a complaint, Secretary Gatchalian said cases will be filed for violations of Republic Act No. 7610 or the “Special Protection of Children Against Abuse, Exploitation and Discrimination Act” and Republic Act No. 7277 or the “Magna Carta for Persons with Disability.”

The DSWD chief said that aside from the victim, the agency’s fact-finding team also learned that there were other members of vulnerable sectors who were profiled by the video uploaders to speak badly about the incumbent mayor.

“People in the marginalized, vulnerable, and poor sectors are somehow being used one way or another for electoral gains of people…this particular case is quite alarming because it can trigger similar setups in another part of the country,” Secretary Gatchalian pointed out.

The Department is now working with the National Bureau of Investigation’s (NBI) Cybercrime Division and Meta Philippines to determine the identities of the perpetrators and to take down the viral video.

“We want to make sure that, one, we unravel their identities. Two, that they get punished, even those that posted this. But more importantly, that this does not happen and nobody replicates it again and again,” the DSWD chief said.

Secretary Gatchalian told ANC’s Headstart that the DSWD is also taking care of the client and the family through the provision of financial assistance and psychosocial intervention. (AKDL)