At a cost of P40 million
TACLOBAN CITY – The Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) will build a P40 million warehouse for better storage of relief goods meant for disaster victims in the region.
DSWD Regional Director Restituto Macuto said the national government has already earmarked P30 million to construct the new permanent warehouse at the Government Center in Palo, Leyte.
“The proposed warehouse is safe from storm surges, flooding and pilferage. The location is strategic, hence, it will be easy for us to bring relief goods to needed communities,” he said.
Macuto said the new warehouse is badly needed since the DSWD regional office has been renting a storage facility in the city for P200,000 monthly located in Barangay Caibaan, this city.
When the region was devastated by supertyphoon “Yolanda” exactly three years ago, the said facility became the regional warehouse where food assistance were loaded and repacked for distribution for the survivors.
Patterned after the DSWD’s National Resource Operation Center, the warehouse will store rice, assorted food packs, blankets, cooking implements, and mosquito nets.
Macuto said that the construction of the regional warehouse will start next year once the needed money will be available.
“We (also) need additional P10 million for filling of the 5,000-square meter lot donated by the provincial government for the new warehouse,” Macuto said.
Recently, the DSWD asked funding assistance from the Department of Public Works and Highways for land preparation since the cost is not included in the original budget proposal.
The DSWD will enter a 25-year usufruct agreement with the provincial government which owns the more than 25-hectare Government Center which also houses several regional government offices.
The DSWD is pushing for the construction of new warehouses after an internal investigation by the agency found that the food packs and sacks of rice dumped in Leyte last year were meant for distribution to victims of typhoons “Ruby” and “Glenda” that hit the country in 2014.
About 200 sacks of relief items intended for typhoon survivors of Ruby and Glenda were dumped in a hole in Barangay Mac-alang, Dagami town.
The DSWD claimed that the dumped items were already spoiled and unfit for human consumption.
