With projected bad weather due to La Niña
TACLOBAN CITY – The Department of Social Welfare and Development Resource Operations Center 8 (DSWD-RROC8) in Palo, Leyte is ramping up efforts to ensure its disaster preparedness and efficient response to various regional emergencies.
Marie Nelle Lumagsao, information officer of the disaster response management division–disaster response information and management section (DRMD-DRIMS), emphasized that they have increased their preposition sites to provide quick support to affected areas.
These sites are strategically located to ensure prompt delivery of relief goods across the region, she said.
As of May 29, provinces with preposition sites are Northern Samar with 14; Samar,13;Eastern Samar,9; Leyte, 13; Southern Leyte, 9; and Biliran, 5.
Lumagsao said that there is a 91,000-item inventory count all over the region, with about 50,000 items held in the RROC8 warehouse and the rest distributed across the 63 preposition sites.
Distributed items include boxes of food (10 canned goods, 10 sachet drink mix, and 6 kilograms of vacuum-sealed rice), pails with hygiene kits (bath soap, laundry soap, shampoo, sanitary napkins, toothbrush, toothpaste, comb, shaving razor, nail cutter, and water dipper), and sleeping kits (mosquito net, blanket, pillow, sleeping mat, malong).
Lumagsao said that not all families receive non-food items such as hygiene kits and sleeping kits, as these are provided based on requests from local government units (LGUs).
Inventory checks for goods are conducted every three months with near-expiry items, identified as those with three months left until expiration, are distributed through LGU proposals for activities like food-for-work and food-for-training programs, particularly those focusing on environmental initiatives like prevention and mitigation training, including coastal clean-ups.
RROC8 is also preparing for the onset of La Niña in June with an expected delivery of 50,000 food packs from the National Resource Operations Center (NROC).
(GOLDA MEIR C.CABIDOG, LEYTE NORMAL UNIVERSITY STUDENT INTERN)
