“DSWD is ready for any disaster situation or event for 2025.”
This was the pronouncement made by Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) Special Assistant to the Secretary (SAS) for Disaster Response Management Group (DRMG) and concurrent officer-in-charge (OIC) of the National Resource and Logistics Management Bureau (NRLMB) Leo Quintilla during the DSWD Thursday Media Forum on June 26.
According to SAS Quintilla, the agency maintains more than 3 million family food packs (FFPs) in all the different hubs, spokes, and last mile warehouses across the country to ensure that local government units (LGUs), who are the first responders during disasters, will be able to immediately distribute resources to their affected constituents.
Aside from ensuring sufficient quantity of goods, SAS Quintilla explained that the DSWD also has measures in place to prevent wastage of relief food items because of the arrival of new mechanized production system equipment in the agency’s disaster hubs.
“We are now more scientific; we are now more efficient. Yung handling natin ng food, because food is very important, bawal na bawal ilapag ang food sa floor. Then all our staff are trained, may sistema lahat on how to place these goods inside the box to ensure na maayos yung shelf life niya…to reduce yung rejection ng ating mga products,” the NRLMB chief told reporters at the forum.
The DSWD is also set to turnover ready-to-eat food (RTEF) boxes to the Philippine Ports Authority (PPA) on June 27 to guarantee that stranded passengers in ports across the country will have meal provisions during instances of sea travel cancellations due to inclement weather.
Currently, the DSWD has more than 120,000 RTEF boxes for distribution to critical port areas, including the Port of Matnog in Sorsogon; Port of Allen in Northern Samar; Port of Batangas; Lucena (Dalahican Port) to Marinduque (Balanacan Port); and Manila North Harbor Port, among others.
“So initially, all regions ang target namin is 10,000 RTEF pero increase namin yung may mga critical ports,” the NRLMB chief emphasized. (AKDL)