Leyte Rep. Yedda Romualdez on Sunday took a swipe at the Bureau of Customs in Cebu for its lack of “malasakit” (compassion) for destroying four containers of donations intended for victims of the 2013 Typhoon “Yolanda.”
The destroyed goods include clothes, diapers, toiletries, medical supplies and canned goods from Belgium, Norway and the United States transported to Cebu in 2014.
“I can’t believe that the Bureau of Customs allowed this to happen when thousands of Filipinos suffer from hunger every day. It hurts to hear something like this. This is another insult to Yolanda victims five years after the tragedy,” Romualdez said.
Romualdez, one of the principal sponsors of the proposed Department of Disaster Resilience measure, reiterated her appeal for the Senate to expedite the passage of the bill approved by the House of Representatives on third and final reading last week.
“I appeal to the Senate leadership to also fast-track the passage of the DDR bill as this would help drastically reduce, if not totally eliminate, the bureaucratic red tape that has caused many delays in the delivery of immediate assistance needed by disaster and calamity victims,” she said.
Lakas-Christian Muslim Democrat president Martin Romualdez also scored the BoC for such negligence.
“I just hope the President would know about it. He will surely get mad. The President all the way down to the victims will definitely abhor and condemn this. It’s like a mortal sin that should not have happened,” he said.
“We call upon all the authorities under the Department of Finance and Customs not to repeat this. That is entirely wrong,” he added.