Procurement of relief items for El Niño affected areas starts

A farmer guides his carabao to a cooler area away from the heat of the sun brought about by the weak El Niño experienced by the country today. | Tonee Despojo

CEBU CITY, Philippines — Cebu Provincial Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Office (PDRRMO) has started with the processing of the procurement requests (PR) for the relief items for El Niño affected areas in the province.

Baltazar Tribunalo, PDRRMO head, said the procurement of the relief items for the food for work program as well as the preparedness materials like water pumps and water storage facilities would be expected to be expedited considering the declaration of the state of calamity in the entire province.

The province has set aside a P59-million quick response fund (QRF) out of its P198 million budget in 2019 for the emergency response measures to the areas gravely affected by the weak El Niño.

Read more: El Niño Phenomenon: Cebu province under state of calamity

The Provincial Board has declared a state of calamity in the entire province last Monday, March 25, due to the effects of the dry spell in agriculture products, livestock, and even in residential areas.

“Nagprocess na ta sa mga PR sa support sa El Niño. Hopefullly, di na man na madugay kay dili na man na magbidding,” Tribunalo said in a phone interview with CDN Digital.

(We are processing the PR [procurement requests] of the support for the El Niño affected areas. Hopefully, it would not be delayed because it would not require for it to be bid out.)

Read more: El Niño has affected crops in 7 towns, 2 cities of Cebu; fish kill cases on the rise

Tribunalo said that involved agencies in the PDRRM Council had also moved for the creation of the regional Task Force El Niño which would look into the monitoring and response efforts of the areas affected by the dry season.

Among the agencies involved in the task force are the PDRRMO, Department of Tourism(DOT), Department of  Agriculture (DA), Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) and Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD).

Tribunalo said that they would continue to verify the coverage of the damage of the dry spell.

“Ang Department of Agriculture, naghimo silag team sa pagtan-aw kung asa gyud nga areas ang affected. Ugma (April 3), molarga ko og Camotes sa pagtan-aw kung unsa pa nga mga panginahanglan pod didto,” Tribunalo said.

(The DA has formed a team to validate the areas affected. I will also go to Camotes tomorrow to check what response efforts may be needed there.)

Among the areas being validated by DA are the 400-hectare agricultural land in all the 24 barangays of Asturias town, 74.3 kilometers south of Cebu City. Asturias is one of the rice and corn-producing areas of the province./dbs