The Department of Social Welfare and Development today clarified the issue on the alleged padded payroll in the construction of bunkhouses for typhoon “Pablo” victims saying that the document being signed by workers is a job order form and not a payroll.

The clarification was made after a news report implied that “the case of father and son Romulo and Remly Serot, who worked as construction workers for the DSWD bunkhouses allegedly showed possible forgery and falsification of documents in the project” as it was indicated in the payroll that they were paid for 12-days when they only worked for one day and three days, respectively.

The DSWD explained that the construction of bunkhouses in Compostela Valley was done through “pakyaw contract” (package deal). The labor cost per program of work and offered for contract is P70,000 per bunkhouse. A “pakyaw contractor” who is interested   to participate will organize his group (10 or more people) and is offered a job order where each member of the pakyaw group will sign to indicate their acceptance of the job order.

Further, the DSWD clarified that the members of the “pakyaw group” is not under nor paid directly by DSWD but by their contractor. Once the contract is completed the DSWD will pay the contractor the full amount of P70,000, and the contractor will be responsible for payment of his workers. No payroll has been tampered, faked or padded, since the document allegedly containing the signatures of Romulo and Remly Serot  is not a payroll, but a job order.

Testimony

Arnold Sembrano,  the contractor contracted by the DSWD to build two bunkhouses in Compostela town, Compostela Valley, hired Romulo and Remly Serot,  to work as skilled and unskilled laborers, respectively. As a skilled worker,  Romulo would be paid P300  per day while Remly  as unskilled worker would receive P200 per day.

According to Sembrano,  on the first week of operations, Romulo worked only for one day, thus receiving P300 while Remly worked for three days and was paid P600.

“On the second week of operations, Romulo and Remly were unable to report for work, “ Sembrano related.

“Since they did not report for work anymore I would have deleted their names in the job order form but because of my haste to submit the job order form which was already being asked by the DSWD, I failed to erase their names,” Sembrano said.

“The wage for the extra days indicated opposite the names of Romulo and Remly were paid to the workers who replaced them, but whose names were not entered in the job order form, “ Sembrano further stated

Sembrano also clarified that DSWD staff have nothing to do with whatever arrangements he made with his workers and laborers.

“As I was the contractor, I was the one who negotiated with my workers their daily wage,” Sembrano said.

Romulo admitted that he worked for one day on a bunkhouse being constructed by DSWD in Compostela Valley and was paid P300  by the contractor.

Barug Katawhan

In a related development, the DSWD also explained that issues being raised by Barug Katawhan, a group of typhoon “Pablo” victims who staged protests against the Department, are baseless, unfounded, and inaccurate.

The DSWD said that Barug Katawhan’s claim that the Department is inept in managing the needs of typhoon “Pablo” victims is unfair explaining that relief  distribution is still on-going  while rehabilitation efforts have already started.  As of February 14, the DSWD has distributed P474,022,690.00 worth of relief goods to 233,354 families. Likewise, the Department has released P24,633,000.00 to fund the cash-for-work program.

The DSWD reiterated its call to Barug Katawhan to first comply with the agreed conditions before the Department will release their request for 10,000 sacks of rice.

The DSWD denied that demanding a list of recipients for the rice assistance is part of   its connivance with the military for communist witch-hunting. The  list is a vital document to be submitted to the Commission on Audit for post-auditing.

The Department added that the military is a longtime partner in its rehabilitation efforts along shelter construction especially for victims of disasters and armed conflicts in Central Mindanao, Region XII, and in the aftermath of typhoon “Sendong” in Region X.

Calamity Fund

The DSWD said it is still using its Quick Response Fund (QRF) of P400M in 2012, and P662M in 2013 plus local and foreign donations in sustaining relief and rehabilitation efforts for typhoon Pablo victims.

Bunkhouses

The DSWD reiterated that there is no overpricing in the bunkhouses built in Compostela Valley. In a previous statement the DSWD already explained that based on a comparative matrix, the cost estimates made by both DSWD and IOM are more or less the same. The difference in total cost was mainly due to varying design features. The DSWD bunkhouse is bigger in floor area, it has thicker floor slabs (1 inch thicker), with more roofing (159 GI sheets while IOM  has 96 GI sheets), with pathway, wash areas, kitchen, toilet and bathroom compared to the IOM bunkhouse which has no provisions for pathway, electrical, kitchen and concrete wash, and toilet and bathroom. The DSWD bunkhouse also includes 12% tax in materials which is not present in the IOM bunkhouse.

Transparency and accountability

The DSWD assured the public that all transactions and activities of the regional office on relief and rehabilitation efforts are supported by documents which are submitted to the Commission on Audit for Post-Audit. Rest assured that should there be findings of irregularities, the DSWD management will deal with these accordingly upholding the tenets of full accountability and transparency.  ###