A weather forecaster shows the path of typhoon Lawin during a press briefing at the weather bureau in Manila.
(INQUIRER PHOTO / GRIG C. MONTEGRANDE)
At least 30,000 food packs are ready for distribution by the social welfare office in Central Visayas in case of contingencies in the region.
Artemia Degamo, Department of Social Welfare and Development in Central Visayas (DSWD-7) social welfare officer, said yesterday that they had been directed by the central office to always have their supplies ready and available since they would have to respond directly to requests of local government units (LGUs) and respond to requests of the regional office when it would need augmentation.
The DSWD-7 gave this statement as typhoon Lawin enters the country.
Aside from the 30,000 food packs stored at the regional warehouse, the Visayas Disaster Response Center also has 50,000 food packs available to augment any supply within the Visayas that might come up short in times of emergencies.
Each food pack contains 6 kilos of rice, eight assorted canned goods, instant coffee, which is a 2-day supply for a family of six.
Degamo said that they have regularly checked the expiry dates of these perishable goods and that under their standard operating procedure, those that are good for only three more months will be disposed through their mitigation activities.
“If there are no disasters, we encourage them (local government units) to submit proposals so that the goods could be used for food for work programs, mitigation activities in disaster preparedness like mangrove planting along the shorelines, dredging of canals and other activities to mitigate the effects of disasters,” she said in Cebuano.
Degamo also said that LGUs had been encouraged to send their requests so that they could preposition these food packs in their areas ahead of an impending calamity.
She said this would be needed since delivery and transportation problems would most likely happen once calamity would strike.
In light of Typhoon Lawin entering the Philippine area of responsibilty and forecasted to become a super typhoon before making landfall in Northern Luzon, Degamo said that they had not yet received prepositioning requests from LGUs in the region.
Despite the absence of such request, Degamo said that they had been in constant communication with the different LGUs regarding the preposition of goods and had already prepositioned in a couple of areas as part of their advanced measures, namely in Siquijor, Madridejos, Poro, San Francisco (Tudela), and in Bohol.
She also said that they also had a standby fund of P3 million.
Meanwhile, the Office of the Civil Defense – Region 7 said that as of this morning, they have already declared a “blue alert status” for the region.
According to Dennis Atto, operations officer of OCD, the status meant that half of their office employees would be on 24-hour duty.
He said that the employees on duty would continuously monitor any incident and weather updates for the region as well as issue alerts to advise the regional offices and the local government units.
Atto said that they had been providing the LGUs with hourly weather updates and thunderstorm advisories so that they could prepare even if they were not directly in the path of typhoon Lawin.
Atto likewise urged the public to continue monitoring weather updates from Pag-asa as rainshowers would still be expected due to the enhanced “habagat” in the region.
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