A senior official of the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) assured families who continue to bear the brunt of the El Nino on the readiness of the agency to help them cope with its effects during the DSWD’s Thursday Media Forum on February 15.

DSWD Undersecretary for Disaster Response Management Group (DRMG) Diana Rose Cajipe told reporters that the Department will ensure food security through the prepositioning of family food packs (FFPs) in affected localities.

“Malaking tulong po ang mga naka-preposition natin na goods. We are talking about the food packs, but aside from that, the regional offices ng DSWD are open to any referrals for those already affected by the El Niño,” Undersecretary Cajipe said during the regular media forum hosted by Assistant Secretary for Strategic Communications Romel Lopez and Traditional Media Service (TMS) Director Aldrine Fermin.

In the same forum, Special Assistant to the Secretary (SAS) for DRMG and Concurrent Director of National Resource and Logistics Management Bureau (NRLMB) Leo Quintilla said there are 849 warehouses around the country, including 780 identified warehouses of local government units (LGUs) and partners.

“What is important right now is we are doing the relief prepositioning agreement with our local government units. We also provide capacity building sa ating mga partners to ensure na ma-maintain natin yung quality of our food and non-food items na naka-preposition sa kanilang mga warehouses,”  SAS Quintilla pointed out.

(What is important right now is we are doing the relief prepositioning agreement with our local government units. We also provide capacity building to our partners to ensure that we maintain the quality of our food and non-food items prepositioned in their warehouses.)

The capacity building activities referred to by SAS Quintilla include the monitoring of expiration, tagging, proper storage, and quality checking of FFPs to ensure that the goods being distributed to disaster-affected families are safe to consume.

Aside from the prepositioning of FFPs, Asst. Secretary Lopez, who is also the agency’s spokesperson,  pointed out that the DSWD is working with the Department of Agriculture (DA) and the United Nations – World Food Programme (UN-WFP) in the implementation of Project LAWA or Local Adaptation to Water Access in selected municipalities from the provinces of Ifugao, Antique, and Compostela in Davao de Oro.

Project Lawa aims to mitigate the impacts of drought and dry spells caused by the El Niño by establishing 90 small farm reservoirs (SFRs) in the selected provinces.

Under the project, residents in the pilot areas are provided with financial support, through the agency’s cash-for-work (CFW) and cash-for-training (CFT), in exchange for the work they rendered in constructing the alternative water resources.

“Ito yung whole-of-nation, whole-of-government approach just to make sure na no one will be left behind dun sa tulong natin should itong effect talaga ng El Niño ay mas maramdaman,”  Asst. Sec. Lopez said.

(This is the whole-of-nation, whole-of-government approach just to make sure that no one will be left behind in our assistance, should the effects of El Niño be strongly felt.) #