Time for Dinky Soliman to resign from DSWD!

Last Jan. 17 at the height of the Papal visit…we wrote that article chastising the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) for rounding up street children in Pasay City to keep them away from the eyes of Pope Francis as he passed by the streets of Manila. Also on the same day, a report coming from the UK based The Daily Mail showed a photo of children caged to keep them away from the streets. Suddenly this story went viral in the social media networking sites.

DSWD then wrote me a letter denying this story… and later no less than DSWD Sec. Dinky Soliman denied that all this happened. But now that the Pope has returned to Rome, the truth has surfaced… that the DSWD did in fact go out of its way to remove the street children and homeless families from the streets of Manila. Soliman now admits that some 500 children and their families were loaded on tour buses and brought to the Chateau Royale Resort in Nasugbu, Batangas. Liar, liar, pants on fire Dinky!

So in the end our stories were validated that the DSWD did indeed round up all the street children, but supposedly under the guise that the syndicates that used them would “cash in” from the multitude of people that swooped down to Metro Manila to see Pope Francis. But what they wrote me was therefore a total lie! No less than Sec. Soliman admitted that they paid P4,000 per room for six days at the Chateau Royale to house those street urchins. My, my why Nasugbu? Because it’s so far away from Manila?

This thing blew up in the social media networking sites… and now it is all out in the open and common knowledge. Worse, Sec. Dinky Soliman continues to lie to the public. First it was to prevent the children from being used by the criminal syndicates that used them on the streets. Now Dinky Soliman says that the street urchins were sent to Batangas for a “Family Camping Workshop” that she calls a “Modified Conditional Cash Transfer Program.” She said that this was not the first time that the poor families were sent to out-of-town trips through the CCT program. Really Dinky???

Frankly speaking, I find the explanation of Stinky Dinky pure hogwash! Pray tell me how poor families could benefit from those out-of-town trips when what they need is to pay for the day-to-day sustenance? I gathered that the government would investigate the NGOs that gave this information to the The Daily Mail. But if there is anyone who should be investigated, it should be Sec. Soliman, first of all for lying to the public. But then lies seem to be the most common commodity in the Aquino regime.

ABS-CBN also came up with a report that at least 50 homeless families abandoned and fled their makeshift homes along Taft Ave. and other streets in Pasay City scared that some of them had previous criminal records and they could be out of the streets for a long time. So now what do we do? For sure, we should be demanding the resignation of Sec. Dinky Soliman for she no longer fits the definition of a true public servant.

Mind you, I’m not alone. Netizens are as mad as hell that they were lied to by Sec. Soliman. Now no less than Sen. Alan Peter Cayetano is calling for a full disclosure from DSWD why the street urchins and homeless families were sent to an expensive resort? Party-list members of Congress, Rep. Emmie de Jesus of Gabriela Party and Rep. Jonathan dela Cruz of Abakada Party are also demanding for an investigation of the “misuse” or “misappropriation” of millions of CCT funds.

So let’s see how far this investigation will go. I’m not really so keen because I’m sure that Congress will just put this in the burner and when the next breaking news comes out… all this will be forgotten. So I’d rather ask for the resignation of Dinky Soliman now and we won’t stop demanding this!

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In another Papal event that went haywire, we gathered that the Civil Aviation Authority (CAAP) had successfully removed the ill-fated Bombardier G50 private jet that was blown off the runway at the Tacloban Airport just after the Papal plane flew to avoid Typhoon “Amang.” However until now, the questions that we raised as to who were the persons on board that plane together with Sec. Pacquito Ochoa and Communications Sec. Herminio “Sonny” Coloma, Jr. and what were they doing in Tacloban City when the visit of Pope Francis was a pastoral visit? Malacañang is “amang” on this.

Until now… Malacañang has been mum on our questions… especially whether or not we the taxpayers paid for that private plane? So here we go again… asking questions and getting no response from Malacañang, yet they proudly proclaim that the Aquino regime is transparent. So where’s the transparency here? Once more we remind the Malacañang Press Office of the powerful message of Pope Francis…”Reject all forms of corruption… as corruption diverts resources that should have helped the poor.”

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