What’s cooking in Mandaue City

Mandaue City’s mobile kitchens are also used in the implementation of the city’s feeding program. Photo/ Mandaue City PIO

For the past six years, Marlyn Sugarol who works for Mandaue City’s Social Welfare and Services (CSWS) has been tasked to cook meals for calamity victims and street children.

Each time a calamity like fire strikes the city, it has been her job along with other CSWS cooks to prepare immediate food assistance for victims.

It is a tough job, said Marlyn, especially at the time when there had yet been no real kitchen within which to prepare the food needed to be sent out quickly to a calamity area.

Because it was the quickest and most convenient food to prepare, Marilyn and her co-workers would cook “lugaw” or hot porridge inside the office.

“Aminon nako nga hasol g’yud siya. Kanang unta naa kay daghan time nga daghan imong maluto para nila pero tungod sa dili siya convenient maong kanang madali-dali nga pagkaon ra ang maluto (I admit it was a hassle. It would have better if we could cook more food for the victims but it was not convenient so we just cooked whatever was quick),” Marlyn told Cebu Daily News.

Jessie Perez, City Social Welfare and Services (CSWS) head, said that use of the mobile kitchen is easy and cost- efficient.

Convenience and savings

This year, Marlyn’s job became a whole lot easier when the Mandaue City government bought six mobile kitchen vehicles.

The purchase also resulted to budget savings for the city as its government no longer needed to buy more food from suppliers or contract the services of caterers.

“Okay na g’yud siya kesa sa opisina pa magluto (It is more convenient now than cooking at the office),” said Marlyn.

The mobile kitchens are now part of the city’s disaster response unit to provide hot meals to calamity victims.

“These will be mobile relief centers for CSWS so that during fires, flood, (and) evacuation, we will have facilities and a well-lit center to coordinate efforts,” said Mandaue City Mayor Luigi Quisumbing in an earlier interview with reporters.

The vehicles, which were produced locally, were bought by the city for P9 million, said CSWS head Jessie Perez.

Each mobile kitchen is equipped with a metal sink, big gas stoves, kitchen utensils and cabinets. They also come with a generator set and a water tank that can store up to 200 liters of water for each one of them.

“These were purchased locally. Diri ra g’yud ni sa Mandaue nato gipalit. (We bought this here in Mandaue) We also want to support our local businesses,” said Perez.

“I believe that we are the first LGU (local government unit) to purchase such vehicles in Metro Cebu,” Perez proudly said.

“Dako g’yud kaayo mi na save this time (We were able to save a lot of money this time), said Perez of the new kitchens that not only made it convenient for the CSWS cooks to prepare hot meals for victims; but also saved the city a lot of funds.

The vehicles were purchased last April.

It was used for the first time on May 1 during a CSWS feeding program.

“These are not only for calamity victims. Naa tay mga foster children diri sa city mao sad na atong gigamit during our feeding program (The city also has foster children and we used this during our feeding program),” said Perez.

On the part of Marlyn and other CSWS cooks, the kitchens are a welcome relief from the hassle of cooking food for hundreds of people in the confines of their small office.

Marlyn said because food aid had to be sent out quickly to an area, the fastest to prepare was “lugaw”, but even that took time when cooked inside their office.

They also had to cook additional food and send them out to the victims at once on instances when the food they cooked was not enough.

Now that the city has mobile kitchens, Marlyn said that they can now cook other meals aside from porridge.

“Nindot kaayo ang feeling nga makaluto ka nila dili lang lugaw (It is such a nice feeling that we are able to cook them not just porridge),” she said.