MARAWI CITY (MindaNews/30 June) – The profiling of internally displaced persons (IDPs) or Kathanor in Marawi City officially ended Friday or 11 days after it resumed last June 17.
Felix Castro, Task Force Bangon Marawi field office manager said they are now preparing for the next phase of the Kathanor program which is designed for those who rented spaces in Marawi before the the siege two years ago that destroyed the city’s commercial area.
“We are tentatively setting the next phase in the middle of July as soon as we are ready,” Castro told MindaNews.
People still jam-packed the registration centers at the Marawi Resort hotel (formerly known as Ayala Resort Hotel) on the last day of the registration.
Castro estimated at more than 2,000 the people who came in to register last Friday.
“I do not understand why there are still people coming when the registration started last November,” he said.
The profiling of IDPs was suspended last May 22 after it was found out that an unusually large number of people were able to register.
Castro said it turned out that many of them were “fake IDPs” who were able to get spurious public documents to back their claims.
He said Kathanor was supposed to have ended in March, and the May 20 to 31 schedule was supposedly only for those with grievances or complaints or those who were unable to meet the schedules for their barangays.
Instead, Castro said they were “mobbed” by the fake IDPs.
He said the problem on fake IDPs surfaced during the May 20 to 31 schedule after the Department of Social Welfare and Development released P73,000 “pabaon” cash assistance for those who were already registered under the Kathanor program.
Under the DSWD cash assistance program, P20,000 worth of financial assistance was given to IDPs to start their own business and a lump sum of P53,000 as transitory family support package.
Aside from the financial assistance, the DSWD also gave another “pabaon” package consisting of canned goods and other food items.
“This attracted the people to register,” Castro said.
He said there was no problem in the profiling process from October 2018 to March 2019.
He said as of May 20, a total of 44,497 households of IDPs inside and outside the Main Affected Area had been profiled or registered in the Kathanor program since October 7 last year. (Froilan Gallardo/MindaNews)
Read previous story on the Kathanor here.