China hands over 6,000 sacks of rice for disaster victims

DSWD Regional Director Mercedita Jabagat (2nd from right) receives a rice bag from Agriculture Undersecretary Bernadette Romulo-Puyat during the ceremonial turnover of the 16,000 sacks of rice. Also present are representatives from APTERR, China Ministry of Agriculture and local officials from Cebu Province. (Contributed Photo)

The Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) received 16,000 sacks of rice (800 metric tons) from the Chinese government on Wednesday.

The rice shipment was turned over by general manager Nongnoch Deetae of the Asean Plus Three Emergency Rice Reserve (APTERR),  an organization established under the purview of the Association of South East Asian Nations (Asean) plus three countries like China, Japan and South Korea to secure food security in an emergency caused by temporary and large scale calamity.

During the turnover at the National Food Authority (NFA) compound in North Reclamation Area, Cebu City, Deetae expressed sympathy to the Philippine government for the devastation caused by typhoon Yolanda.

After Yolanda hit the country, the NFA requested rice assistance from the APTERR secretariat in Thailand.

“We quickly made an appeal to the APTERR member countries for voluntary contributions and we received positive feedback from them,” Deetae said.

The 10,000 rice bags will be distributed to the earthquake victims in Bohol and the remaining 6,000 sacks will be for the Yolanda victims in northern Cebu.

Aside from the 16,000 sacks of rice from China, other countries like Malaysia, Thailand and Japan will also send their rice donations.

DSWD-7 Regional Director Mercedita Jabagat assured the Chinese government that the donation will reach to the disaster affected families.