Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) Secretary Rex Gatchalian on Saturday (June 10) visited the evacuation centers in the province of Albay to check on the conditions of the evacuees who came from the 6-kilometer permanent danger zone.

“I’m here with the DSWD team to see to it that the instruction of the President to make sure everything is ready just in case things turn for the worst is carried out,” the DSWD chief said.

Upon arrival in Albay airport early morning, the DSWD chief visited two evacuation centers in Anislag Elementary School in Daraga City where personnel of the Field Office V distributed family food packs (FFPs)

Secretary Gatchalian and his DSWD team from the Central Office later proceeded to the Albay provincial capitol building for a courtesy visit with Governor Edcel Greco Lagman.

“If you could provide us with additional warehouses, Governor, we will send you more food packs to ensure we have more than enough stockpile for the duration of the mayon operations,” Secretary Gatchalian said.

In his Facebook post Friday, Governor Lagman thanked Secretary Gatchalian for providing Albay with all the needed food items that have been prepositioned to the warehouse provided by the provincial government of Albay.

“I was also very happy when Sec. Rex informed me that Albay will receive One Hundred Two Thousand (102,000) FFPs. Salamat po, Sec. Rex,” Gov. Lagman said.

An initial 2,169 families or more than 7,000 persons have already been evacuated to safety and are now temporarily sheltered in public school buildings and previously identified evacuation centers in the municipality of Malilipot and the cities of Tabaco and Daraga.

The forced evacuation started Friday (June 9) based on the advisory of the Philippine Institute for Volcanology and Seismology (PHIVOLCS) that the volcanic unrest in Mayon continues to heighten and the alert level may even be raised from the current Alert Level 3.

On Friday, Albay 2nd District Congressman Joey Salceda thanked Secretary Gatchalian for the quick DSWD response and full support for the requested family food packs for Mayon evacuees wherein 9,829 families are now seeking temporary shelter in the evacuation centers in Daraga City and the towns of Camalig, Guinobatan, Santo Domingo, and Malilipot.

Salceda sent the request to Gatchalian on Thursday, June  8, to request food packs for the 45-day and 90-day evacuation scenarios for affected residents in the five municipalities.

“The scenarios are based on historical experience with Mayon volcanic activity, where evacuation tends to be protracted to 47 days or 90 days. We hope that the DSWD will be able to grant at least 50% of the food pack requirements for the 45-days scenario, considering that most these requirements will materialize once Alert Level 4 is declared,” Salceda said in a statement.

Salceda is requesting some 147,435 food packs for the 45-day scenario, and 294,870 food packs for the 90-day scenario, or “to at least prepare 50 percent of the 45-day requirement.”

Secretary Gatchalian has assured Salceda that “we have 60,000 food packs in Albay warehouses. Then, in the neighboring warehouses in the entire region, another 40,000…We can most definitely provide support to your LGUs, going even further than the 50 percent of the 45-day scenario.”

After the courtesy visit, the Secretary met the mayors of Albay Province to ensure that all local government units are ready to assist and provide necessary assistance to the affected families and individuals amid Mayon Volcano’s unrest.

The DSWD chief said, “We are ready to handle all potential calamities. We want to make sure that we maximize our resources by ensuring that DSWD and the Provincial Local Government Unit of Albay complement each other and that there is no redundancy of services.”

The DSWD’s Bicol regional office remains on alert and continues to coordinate with LGUs about the situation of Mayon while providing evacuees with all the needed relief goods as well as non-food items such as hygiene kits. #