LGUs turn creative to feed people amid lockdown

Local government units (LGUs) and private donors have found creative ways to ensure that residents don’t go hungry when most people are forced to stay indoor as towns, cities and provinces outside of Metro Manila implement their own lockdown to protect their communities from the spread of the new coronavirus disease (COVID-19).

In Baguio City, the local government said it would buy vegetables from local farmers that would be included in family food packs that would be distributed to poor residents until the end of the Luzon lockdown that was implemented to stop the spread of the coronavirus.

In Tarlac province, the COVID-19 task force bought 30 motorcycles to monitor daily situations on the streets of Bamban town. Another six rescue vehicles were expected to arrive next week to transport food supplies in the town, Bamban Mayor Jose Antonio Feliciano said at a press briefing last week.

Planting vegetablesFeliciano also said they would plant vegetables in a 30-hectare lot at Barangay Virgen Delos Remedios to achieve food security.

Tarlac Gov. Susan Yap said they would ask the national government to allow tricycles in the province to ferry villagers from their homes to the market or groceries to buy food.

Mass transportation, including tricycles, had been suspended while the lockdown was in effect to curb the spread of the virus.

‘Live chickens’In Quezon province, a former overseas worker who owns a poultry farm has been donating live chickens to his townmates in Lucban to augment their food supplies as stores started to close and with markets on limited operating hours in observance of the lockdown.

Patricia Cabawatan, said her father, Ernesto, accompanied by Mayor Olivier Dator, distributed more than 400 live chickens in the town last week.

In Laguna province, the Biñan City government distributed chicken and “sayote” so poor families in Barangay dela Paz can prepare the chicken soup dish “tinola” that would be shared by households in the community.

In Pagsanjan town, Mayor Peter Casius Trinidad said those who would distribute food packs would do scheduled rounds at night so residents need not gather in a specific area. They are instructed to leave a chair outside their homes and wait inside.

Distribution teams will then put one family food pack per household on the chairs. Residents could only go out and get their food packs once the distribution teams had left. —REPORTS FROM KIMBERLIE QUITASOL, MARIA ADELAIDA CALAYAG, JO MARITINEZ-CLEMENTE, VILLAMOR VISAYA JR., CARMELA REYES-ESTROPE, KIMMY BARAOIDAN, MARICAR CINCO AND DELFIN T. MALLARI JR. INQ