Philippines asks aid agencies to limit food rations
MANILA, June 3 (Reuters) - The Philippines discouraged on Wednesday aid agencies from distributing large amounts of food to internally displaced families on a restive southern island to prevent rice supplies from being handed to rebels.
The government adopted stricter controls over management of food, medicines and other relief supplies after troops seized about 11 tonnes of rice on Sunday being spirited out from a camp for displaced people on the southern island of Mindanao.
There were concerns food distributed to thousands of displaced families across the oil and gas-rich marshlands of central Mindanao region were being diverted to Muslim rebels or sold to traders.
"This illegal act deprives the rightful beneficiaries of assistance which they so needed, especially that they have been displaced from their places of origin and have lost their sources of livelihood," Esperanza Cabral, head of the government's social welfare department, said in a statement.
Cabral's department met with several humanitarian and aid agencies on Wednesday to discuss stricter measures to plug potential leakage in the handling of food and relief supplies.
"We discourage big amounts of rationing by the World Food Programme (WFP) as it encourages selling," Celia Yangco, social welfare undersecretary, told Reuters, adding the government has began issuing access cards to displaced families to control distribution.
In some refugee camps in southern Maguindanao province, community kitchens have been set up and more will be built in other areas to make sure only displaced families are served.
About 320,000 people have fled their homes in Maguindanao since fighting between soldiers and rogue members of the country's largest Muslim rebel group, Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), escalated in the last six weeks. [ID:nMAN501557]
Stephen Anderson, WFP country director, said his agency was aware that some displaced families may have been sharing their food ration with some combatants, but said these appeared to be isolated cases.
"We have to work and devise a system to prevent them," Anderson said. "We're doing everything to ensure that food goes to its intended beneficiaries."
Since August 2008, the WFP had distributed more than 11,200 tonnes of food to about 600,000 people displaced by fighting in the south, the largest number of internally displaced people (IDP) anywhere in the world last year. [ID:nN01329225] (Reporting by Manny Mogato; Editing by Rosemarie Francisco and Sugita Katyal)
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