THE Department of Social Welfare and Services (DSWD) in Region 7 started to distribute the 126,920 sacks of rice donated by the Algerian government to supertyphoon Yolanda victims in northern Cebu and Tacloban City.
The Bureau of Customs approved the release of the rice donation housed in 246 container vans last Thursday.
Kerwin Macopia, information officer of the regional DSWD-7, said they initially sent 20,000 sacks of rice to Tacloban City last May 30.
Tacloban City is the entry point for the shipment of Algerian rice in Eastern Visayas and will be distributed by DSWD-8, which took care of identifying beneficiaries in their area.
“We will have the next shipment within this week of 40,000 sacks of rice. The volume of the shipment depended on the capacity of the vessel,” he said.
Macopia said they will also deliver Algerian rice to northern Cebu.
He said they are now distributing the third batch of food packs there.
The Algerian rice is stored at the Cebu International Convention Center (CICC) in Mandaue city and is still fit for human consumption, he said.
The rice donations arrived in January this year in seven shipments on Jan. 2, 9, 29, 23, 24, 30 and February 13.
The shipments were not immediately released because they were not covered by import permits from the National Food Authority (NFA).
The DSWD-7 received P14 million from their central office to pay for the demurrage fees charged for overstaying cargo in the port.
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