CPP ‘front’ accused of “shortchanging” Yolanda victims
FARMERS and residents in Carigara, Leyte, who were among those who suffered from the widespread devastation caused by ‘Super Typhoon Yolanda’ in 2013, are demanding an explanation from a suspected communist front organization after it failed to help alleviate their living condition despite the millions in donations channeled to it by the United Nations and other international humanitarian organizations in a period of 3 years.
In a statement from the 8TH Infantry Division last September 10, 2021, members and identified ‘beneficiaries’ of the Leyte Center for Development, Inc. (LCDE), based in the villages of Hiluctogan, Canlampay, Caghalo and Candigahub, all of Carigara, claimed that the few farm animals, carabaos and goats, dispersed to them by LCDE were “sickly” while many of the farm equipment they received were mostly defective and unusable.
Typhoon Yolanda (international code name: ‘Haiyan’) was the strongest tropical storm recorded at the time. It brought widespread devastation in the Visayas, particularly in the island of Leyte, where it made landfall on November 3, 2013.
Aside from the massive destruction in properties, more than 6,000 people were officially declared dead, although the actual number of victims are still being debated until now after then Pres. Noynoy Aquino forbade the release of more information.
The 8th Infantry Division was the first to mobilize its resources and manpower during the ensuing rescue and rehabilitation efforts that followed.
The LCDE was formerly named ‘MUFAC’ (Municipal Upland Farmers Association of Carigara) but later renamed LCDE, due to the issue of money. It is headed by one ‘Jazmin Jerusalem’ as its executive director.
In the aftermath of the typhoon, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) promptly responded with a three-phase “Typhoon Haiyan Response Program” from November 2013 to December 2016 in partnership with a number of foreign NGOs and international humanitarian agencies.
The newly-upgraded OCHA Country Office in the Philippines partnered with several domestic private agencies, among them, LCDE, “to assist affected communities (men, women, boys and girls) in Regions 6 and 8 to recover, build back safer houses and increase resilience.”
LCDE was involved in all three phases of the UN initiative. Phase 1 was the emergency phase covering the period from November 2013 to February 2014; Phase 2 was the early recovery phase from February to December 2014; Phase 3 was the medium-term recovery from January 2015 to November 2016.
Bernie Bates, a New People’s Army (NPA) regular who was arrested by the 93rd Infantry Battalion based on an arrest warrant last April 2021 in Bgy. Hiluctogan, bared that MUFAC/LCDE is actually a front organization created by the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) to precisely siphoned off the foreign donations for the use of the terrorist group.
Bates said he was previously assigned by the CPP-NPA local command to act as “volunteer carpenter” for MUFAC during the day but would return back to their terrorist camp by evening in Bgy. Canlampay.
Bates said there were occasions when Jerusalem would visit the MUFAC office in Carigara where she would meet with Juanito Sellesa Jr., alias Tibor, NPA platoon commander.
Intriguingly, the four villages in Carigara where LCDE implemented most of the heavily-funded Phase 3 projects were in the same area where the NPA were active from 2007 until last year (2020).
Alma Gabin, former deputy secretary for education of the Eastern Visayas Regional Party Committee (EVRPC) of the CPP and former Leyte Island Party Committee secretary, also seconded the revelation of Bates, as she was still with the CPP-NPA during the time the LCDE was still manipulating the donations it has been receiving from foreign donations.
Gabin was arrested in June 8, 2020, along with another NPA member and subsequently decided bear all she knows about the terrorist movement in the province.
To fool their donors that money the LCDE has been getting is being properly used, Gabin said they resorted to using “both our left and right hands to sign the attendance sheets and documents just to make it appear that we executed the training projects but actually we diverted the money to the CPP to support the armed struggle that aims to topple the government,” she explained.
