Tacloban City, Leyte – In times of disasters, the staff of the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) have proven to be willing to respond to the call of duty and even give more, especially during times of disasters. They are ready to take on any role that they would be assigned to.
Such were the cases of Social Welfare Assistants Jieva Sameco-Maldo, Juvy V. Pedrera and Peter Jayson Japon, Administrative Assistant Lorfel Penaranda, and Encoder Christian Noel Cabrigas who have been asked to come to this city a few days after Typhoon Yolanda wreaked havoc in Region VIII to help in the relief efforts of the Department.
These five employees who said that they work as a team, were used to desk work, but are now performing jobs that require extra hours of hard work outside the confines of their offices.
They are assigned to oversee the overall operations of the DSWD Tacloban City Relief Hub which include allocating and dispatching of relief goods to cities and municipalities, accounting of food packs, cleanliness and orderliness, among others.
“Waray iya, waray akon (We do not consider work as mine or as theirs.) We work as a team, we coordinate, collaborate, and communicate,” they said.
“Our jobs are inter-connected,” they added.
Roles to play
Jieva Sameco-Maldo, 32, from Liloan Southern Leyte is a staff of the Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program. She is in-charge of allocations. A mother of two children age seven and three, Jieva has been with the DSWD for two years now.
With the demand of her new work at the hub, she chose to live in a tent at the back of the Tacloban Hub to ensure that she is ready to respond anytime that she is needed.
Her typical day starts at 5 o’clock in the morning by getting four 10-wheeler winged vans, five forwarders and eleven Air21 vans ready for the daily dispatching of relief goods. But the night before, from 9 pm to 12 midnight, she had these vehicles already loaded with relief packs.
By 8:00 am, she makes sure that she is done with all the trucks and that all of them have gone their way complete with escorts, with the right load, and responsible drivers.
“I rarely see my children nowadays, but this is where I am assigned so I obey, and I am dedicated to my job,” she added.
She even related that she was made to choose between work and family by her husband. It was a good thing, though, that she was able to explain things well to him.
“Whenever I hear that there are rallies against DSWD operations, I am agitated and stressed. They just do not know the sacrifices we put into our jobs, how hard we work to get these goods through to the cities and other municipalities, and how my colleagues, bosses and I spend hours working and making all these possible. If they only know how we go around the five different warehouses under the heat of the sun or under the rain, they might think twice,” Jieva said.
“I started out doing repacking in November, then I was assigned to escort trucks to municipalities, then I was later transferred to my present assignment,” she narrated the different tasks she was asked to do during the disaster operations.
“The number of municipalities to be catered for the day is highly dependent on the production and availability of goods to meet the request of each municipality for food assistance,” Jieva said.
When all the trucks have gone, she assists at the different warehouses in the hub.
“I go to the warehouses to check for cleanliness and stocks,” Jieva says. Here, Jieva meets and coordinates with Lorfel, who is in-charge of mobilization of manpower.
Lorfel Penaranda, 37, has two kids age 18 and five. She is a ‘Yolanda’ survivor herself who lives in San Jose, Tacloban City.
She reported for work just a few days after ‘Yolanda’ with a deep wound on her arm from an angle bar. She had to courageously pull out the angle bar in order for her to save her eldest daughter.
Lorfel reports daily at the hub at 6:30 am. She then checks the attendance of the lifters (those who lift sacks of rice and food packs to the trucks), and also monitors the number of people who have reported for the day.
She coordinates with Jieva and asks about the allocation for each municipality since this would depend on the production/repacking of goods, which she supervises. She then coordinates with the other members of the team on the availability of trucks, loading of goods, deployment of lifters and food-for-work (FFW) workers to the warehouses.
After she does all these, she then looks after the cleanliness of the hub and monitors the activities of each warehouse. She also makes sure that all FFW workers are maximized and are working.
She, then, coordinates with Juvy for incoming donations so that she will know how many lifters would be needed to load and unload these goods, and Japs regarding the availability of trucks to be used.
“During loading and unloading, I sometimes get into trouble with some of the lifters since I want them to be disciplined. I give them a specific time for which to do their work – an average of five minutes to unload a truck, 10 minutes to load a forwarder, 10 minutes to unload a winged van. It’s a tiring and stressful job but I feel fulfilled at the end of the day,” Lorfel said.
“My goal is to serve and do my work well so I make sure that by the end of the day I accomplish a lot,” she said.
With her work, she leaves the hub at 8:00 pm but if production calls for it, she leaves at 11:00 pm.
“The first thing I wake up to is Jieva’s text message reminding me about the allocation for the day,” Lorfel laughs.
“I sometimes wonder if this woman ever sleeps,“ quips Juvy, the coordinator for partner agencies and international partners.
Juvy V. Pedrera, 33, single, starts her day at 7:30 am, but before going to the hub, she has to check on her ailing father.
Her daily concerns include coordinating with Japs about the trucks, Jieva for the allocation, and Lorfel for the mobilization.
Juvy came in November to help with the repacking of goods until the end of the month. Her next assignment was to assess partially and totally damaged houses, validate the dead and alive in every family, validate those living along the 40-meter shoreline, and to encode all these that they have validated.
On January 2, she was reassigned to the hub and thus, had to live in tent near the hub for three months. By March, when things got better, she asked that she be allowed to go home to her ailing father.
Juvy recalled how she coped with some stressful times in the hub. She shared that with the help of her teammates, she was able to handle these.
Fondly called Japs, Peter Jayson, 28, is a father to a six-year-old kid. Japs is in charge of truck scheduling. He starts his day by bringing his child who is in kindergarten, to school at 7:15 am. He is promptly at the hub by 7:30 am.
The night before, he would ask Jieva how many trucks will be deployed the following day. With the information from Jieva, Japs follows up the Request Issuance Slip (RIS) to give to the trucks’ escorts. He then helps Jieva with the allocation, then takes care of all data/reports.
Like the others, Japs goes around the different warehouses to ensure cleanliness and orderliness all around.
On the other hand, Noel holds the team together as he is the team leader. His job includes coordination with the seaport for the arrival of goods. He also takes care of the security of the hub and monitors all activities there including the newly rented Abucay warehouse.
At the end of the day
“We are tired at the end of the day, we endure the heat, dust and rain. We work long hours, way past 5:00 pm. But then, we have that desire to help and this is what keeps us going,” Japs said.
“We seriously do our jobs and do not crack jokes until 2:00 pm. At around 5:00 in the afternoon, we get to relax a bit and this is the time we update each other with stories of the day,” he added.
“When one of us is not around, we feel that our operation is crippled and we miss the person,” Japs continued.
The other four chorused in agreement. ###
