TACLOBAN CITY, Philippines – The Department of Social Welfare of Development’s (DSWD) announced today that they will extend the distribution of relief goods until next year to vulnerable sectors in calamity-stricken areas of Visayas island.
According to DSWD officer-in-charge for Eastern Visayas Nestor Ramos, their relief distribution efforts would just be until the end of this year, but this could change depending on the agency’s assessment of the situation.
“(As) per assessment of our department, the relief distributions will be up to December 30, but we will do another assessment of whether we would continue our relief distribution after December. But definitely, for the vulnerable (sectors), it will continue,” Ramos told members of the Regional Disaster Risk Reduction Management Council (RDRRMC) during a meeting here.
The DSWD already plans to move into its cash-for-work program beginning January next year and has instructed local government units, through their Municipal Social Welfare Development offices, to prepare a project proposal as for the qualified beneficiaries of the said program.
About P533,698,756 worth of family food packs were already distributed by the DSWD for Leyte and Samar provinces alone as of December 7 (Saturday). Cost of assistance for the relief distribution efforts of local government units amounted to P3,938,454.
Meanwhile, the DSWD is launching this afternoon its ‘Feel Good’ project to be attended by Secretary Corazon Soliman, in partnership with the Department of Education and private companies like HBC and the Reyes Haircutters.
The project will serve as a morale booster to the typhoon survivors conceptualized by DSWD’s partner groups from the private sector in Manila. Some 30 haircutters will be giving free haircut to teachers and volunteers in Palo and Holy Infant College in Tacloban. This will be followed shortly by an activity to decorate the ‘Tree of Hope’.
