Soliman orders DSWD-ARMM to continue helping evacuees
COTABATO
CITY, July 30 (PNA) - Social Welfare Secretary Dinky Soliman is in town
to meet with official of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM)
for an update on the status of internally displaced persons (IPDs) in
Maguindanao.
Ali Macabalang, ARMM Bureau of Public Information executive
director, said Soliman met with officials of the regional DSWD office.
In the meeting, Soliman directed DSWD-ARMM Assistant
Secretary Pombaen Karon Kader to continue the humanitarian aid to some
20,000 IDPs still in various evacuation camps in Maguindanao.
Soliman learned that these IDPs have been out of their homes
since the war broke out between government forces and Moro rebels in
2008.
"Maintain assistance because that would let the people
realize that the government is not abandoning them," she told DSWD
officials.
She will personally visit IDP camps in Maguindanao,
Macabalang said.
Soliman said she was saddened that the IDPs are the same
people when she was still the DSWD secretary during the time of then
President Arroyo.
"I already left DSWD and now back again but these people are
still out there...what a sad experience," a DSWD official quoted
Soliman as telling DSWD officials.
She also appealed to warring Muslim clans to spare the
innocent civilians in their armed conflict.
"Better still, refrain from using violence in resolving
misunderstanding," she said.
Most of the IDPs now in evacuation sites are victims of
man-made and natural calamities that befell the province.
IDPs, who started to return home, went back to evacuation
sites because of flooding in their villages.
ARMM Governor Ansaruddin Adiong has also directed other
regional government agencies to continue serving the IDPs despite
limited resources. (PNA)
FFC/NYP/EOF
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