The Department of the Interior and Local Government is investigating 155 local government officials over anomalies in the distribution of cash aid to low-income families affected by a COVID-19 lockdown.

Interior Secretary Eduardo M. Año said they have referred 30 officials to the Office of the Ombudsman.

“We continue to get the names so we can charge these village officials,” he said in Filipino during a taped meeting with President Rodrigo R. Duterte aired on Friday.

Mr. Año said relatives and the immediate family members of some village captains had received cash aid even if they were ineligible.

“They will all be charged because what they did was against the law,” he added. — Vann Marlo M. Villegas

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