TACLOBAN CITY- Families in Catbalogan City, Samar have each received a sack of rice and grocery items in relief goods to help them stay stuck at home for COVID-19 quarantine.
Mayor Dexter Uy said the local government has allocated at least P90 million for the project which targeted over 30,000 families in the city.
By giving a sack of rice and grocery items to the families, he said there would no longer be any reason for his constituents to go out unless for urgent or extremely necessary purposes.
“The city government will give food assistance as long as this is needed and if there are funds, so that the people will stay at their homes as the frontliners work to ensure Catbalogan’s safety,” Uy said in a text message.
His elder sister, Councilor Stephanie Uy-Tan, said the city government has to prioritize giving food to the people in this time of crisis.
“We prioritize the food on the table for our constituents over projects because this is what everybody needs right now,” she said in a separate text message.
She said by giving sacks, instead of bags, of rice, physical contact would be avoided between volunteers or workers repacking items.
Aside from rice, the city also distributed other goods like coffee, noodles, assorted biscuits, canned goods and hand soaps.
Here in Tacloban City, businessman Jonathan Clemente also donated P100,000 to the village chair of Barangay 72, Raul Asensi.
Asensi used the money to procure sacks of rice and canned goods.
Each of 180 families in the village, considered one of the more affluent areas in Tacloban, received five kilograms of rice and a dozen canned goods.
“But there were families who opted” to not accept the goods, Asensi said.
The items that were not accepted by residents were given to the poor living in the next village, he said.