Volunteers to make CICC ‘biggest’ repacking center in Visayas
Five-year-old Carleona Martinez unfolded plastic bags to be filled with rice and canned goods.
Sometimes she’d pause to pick up cans of sardines.
From school, the kindergarten pupil came with her parents to the basement of the Cebu International Convention Center (CICC) in Mandaue City, where volunteers are joining a new avenue for relief efforts for typhoon “Yolanda” victims.
“We are here to help in our own small way,” said her mother Paula, a part-time call center agent as her husband Carlos carried sacks of rice.
Operations in the CICC are expected to scale up to a 24-hour operation after it started ahead of schedule Thursday night instead of Friday morning due to the arrival of a large volume of government-procured goods and waves of volunteers waiting since the afternoon to get their hands busy.
“The passion and concern of the Cebuanos is contagious. It serves as an adrenaline rush that’s keeping everyone up,” said Joel Villanueva, secretary general of the Technical Education and Skills Development Authority (Tesda) who came to start up operations to reinforce the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD).
“Our goal is to set up the biggest relief packing center in the Visayas region,” he said.
The target of preparing 100,000 relief packs a day is double the current volume being asked of the DSWD for the Nov. 8 calamity victims.
Cebu province’s central location, with access to piers and an international airport, has made it the staging ground for logistics support for Yolanda relief efforts by national and international agencies.
“Whatever the government procures, we will pack it and deploy it right away,” said Villanueva.
He clarified that CICC is not a drop off center for relief goods, but an extended repacking center of DSWD for typhoon victims in Eastern Visayas.
One relief bag contains 10 canned goods (sardines and meat loaf) and six kilos of rice to support a family of five for three days.
“We want to produce 100,000 packs a day which is right now impossible but doable,” said Villanueva.
“If we have volunteers left and right to help out even in the wee hours of the morning, perhaps we can operate 24/7. That’s what we intend to do.”
By 4 p.m. of Thursday, volunteers were already lining up to register as volunteers. They case as groups of friends, TESDA trainees, and students of Benedicto College and the University of San Jose – Recoletos.
There are shifts of two to three hours each for an average of 500-600 volunteers.
The schedule covers a 24-hour day: 10 p.m.-2 a.m., 2 -6 a.m., 6- 10 a.m., 10 a.m-2p.m, 2 – 6 p.m, and 6 -10 p.m.
But some volunteers choose to extend their time and help longer.
Villanueva cited the “partnership, openness and volunteerism” of the Cebuanos and local government units when he arrived from Manila Thursday and met with Cebu Gov. Hilario Davide III, TESDA Deputy Director General Irene Isaac, Mandaue City Mayor Jonas Cortes, and TESDA Regional Director-7 Rosanna Urdaneta.
In the past few days, repacking has been done at the Benito Ebuen Air Base in Mactan and the DSWD-7 field office along M.J. Cuenco Ave in Cebu City.
Relief packs are marked in red “DSWD” “RELIEF PACKS” “NOT FOR SALE”.
Earlier this week, DSWD 7 was calling for at least 1,000 volunteers to help prepare 50,000 food packs a day for typhoon victims in Eastern Visayas.
“We just need man power and logistics for this operation,” said Aileen Lariba, information officer of the Dept. of Social Welfare and Development.
“If we receive orders to extend this beyond 50,000 packs per day then we will continue, she said.
About 1,500 volunteers have been bagging relief goods since Thursday evening at CICC.
Yesterday, 15,000 relief packs were prepared and ready to be transported in six truckloads of rice and three truckloads of canned goods.
Students from different schools, some still wearing uniforms worked side by side with employees and other volunteers, disregarding the heat in the basement.
A group of University of San Carlos (USC) students chose to spend their free time repacking goods since Monday, first at their school campus and now at the CICC basement.
“Since we have a lot of free time and there’s no regular class yet we decided to help,” said accountancy student Andrea Tugonon.
More volunteers signed up from the University of the Visayas (UV), University of Cebu (UC), Cebu Doctor’s University (CDU), USJR and University of San Carlos (USC), TESDA scholars and students from AMA and Cebu Technological Sciences – Cebu
The DSWD-7 handles logistics of sending food packs to Eastern Visayas, cities of Ormoc, Tacloban, Isabel and Guian in Saamr.
Counterparts in the localities take charge of the distribution of goods at the airport.
“We need communication with those other areas in Eastern Visayas that need help so that we can immediately respond,” said Aileen Lariba, DSWD 7 information officer.
She said the agency is also assisting typhoon victims in northern Cebu and sends relief goods to the Provincial Capitol which is in charge of repacking and sending them to the affected towns and cities.
