10,000 urban poor demand release of long-overdue crisis compensation

MANILA – Urban poor families have endured the extreme heat and harassment in maintaining their camp-out in front of the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) Central Office for almost a week, to demand the release of crisis compensation for almost 10,000 families.

Angeline Mendoza, urban poor community organizer, told Bulatlat that their campaign started in July 2025, having attended more than ten dialogues with the DSWD officials regarding crisis compensation for victims of typhoons last year. 

“We followed their procedures but they backed down. This is long overdue,” Mendoza said in Filipino. 

The onslaught of three consecutive typhoons – Crising, Dante, and Emong, followed by a Southwest Monsoon in 2025 – caused approximately P3.7 billion damage in infrastructure, with 40 cities and municipalities declaring a state of calamity.

Kalipunan ng Damayang Mahihirap (Kadamay) is leading the camp-out since Monday, April 13, initially attended by over 2,000 families. They had a dialogue with the DSWD on the same day but their demands remain unheard.

The DSWD asked them to provide a masterlist of the affected families so that they can enroll them under the Assistance to Individuals in Crisis Situation (AICS) program of their department. 

“The program of AICS is open to everybody as long as there is a current crisis and that the people need augmentation from the DSWD,” said Director Edwin Morata of DSWD’s crisis intervention program in a media forum on April 16. “We are not looking at the economic level whether you’re rich or poor, what we are looking for is your current situation, your capacity, and where we can enter to help.”

Mendoza showed Bulatlat hundred-page documents, showing the affected families from the cities of Quezon, Caloocan, and Bulacan. A message exchange with a DSWD personnel shows that the families registered in the masterlist are already encoded in the government’s database and “good for payout.”

“We went back and forth since they did not provide us with any template. When we provided them the masterlist, they said that they could not process it since it is not encoded in their template,” Mendoza added. “Still, we processed it. We went to computer shops just to encode and print these documents. Then later in the dialogue, they could not process it again since it is in a PDF format. These are deliberate delaying tactics since July.”

Mendoza emphasized that the release of aid is but one of their demands, saying they want long-term solutions. She said that since the DSWD insisted they utilize and enroll in the AICS program, they followed the procedures.

Bulatlat wrote to the DSWD to ask for the statement but the agency has not yet replied as of this writing. 

“Thousands of families are waiting for the agency’s compensation,” Mendoza said. “They are quick in approving relief aid for the use of politicians but for communities like us, we have to suffer from the long bureaucratic process.”

On April 16, at exactly 11:46 p.m., while the families were watching in their camp-out, approximately 20 armed police officers tried to remove the banners and placards, and threatened the protesters. On April 15, over 100 members of Special Weapons and Tactics (SWAT) and police violently dispersed the camp-out of urban poor families. 

Twenty striking individuals sustained injuries, many of whom were women and elders, according to the Center for Trade Union and Human Rights (CTUHR). An armed intelligence agent also harassed the people in their barricade on April 14.

“Assistant Secretary Paul Ledesma even told us that he has no business with us even if we suffer from extreme heat and violence,” said Mendoza. “It is insulting. This is their obligation and we should not be begging for this in the first place.”

The 2025 approved budget for DSWD allocated for individuals and families in difficult circumstances is  nearly P45 billion ($755.4 million). In 2026, it increased to P63.9 billion ($1.07 billion) allocation. (RTS, RVO)

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