No, a former Philippine opposition lawmaker did not use typhoon assistance funds to buy a house

This article claims that Francisco Cachuela, described as a lawmaker from the Liberal Party (LP) who served in Congress from 2010-2013, bought the house using the government’s disaster funds.

The article includes this image:

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The misleading image is from this advertisement for a property being sold in the Philippines.

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The false report says the purported misuse happened four years after Haiyan struck in 2013.

It says Cachuela was no longer a member of the House of Representatives at the time of the purported fraud but was assigned by then interior secretary Manuel “Mar” Roxas to handle the distribution of typhoon relief.

Roxas, representing the Liberal Party, ran against current Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte in the 2016 elections.

There is no record on the House of Representatives’ list of members from 2010-2013 of a Francis Cachuela.

The article claims that Cachuela was a representative from Tacloban, a city in the first district of the province of Leyte.

Ferdinand Martin Romualdez represented the first district of Leyte from 2010-2013, as shown in the above House of Representatives' list.

The false report also said Cachuela was previously a member of Waray Waray, which it described as a small political party for underrepresented groups such as farmers and unskilled workers.

There is no Waray Waray in the lower house. The only party with a similar name that won seats in the House of Representatives is called An Waray, and Cachuela was not among the party members named to its seats.

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The false report says the Volunteers Against Crime and Corruption (VACC) exposed Cachuela’s purported misuse of funds.

It quoted Attorney Arturo Braganza, whom it identified as a spokesman for VACC, as saying that a one-term congressman who worked as a livestock trader after a three-year term would not have been able to afford a multi-million-peso house.

The VACC spokesman, Arsenio “Boy” Evangelista, told AFP the group did not have an Arturo Braganza working for it.

“I’m the only spokesman in VACC,” Evangelista said in a phone interview.

Evangelista also said the group had no information on any purported misuse of Haiyan relief funds, either by anyone named Cachuela or anyone else.

“We don’t know anything related to the issue,” Evangelista said.

Haiyan, known as “Yolanda” in the Philippines, was one of the strongest storms ever recorded to make landfall. It killed thousands of people across the Philippines and caused billions of dollars worth of damage to farms, homes and infrastructure.

The false report has been shared to more than 280,000 people and been promoted by groups that support Duterte, according to data from  social media monitoring platform CrowdTangle.

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Screenshot of CrowdTangle data