Palace may allot more funds for relief

MANILA, Philippines–Malacañang is looking into the possibility of releasing more money to augment the P4.69-billion “quick response fund” earlier made available as the country braced for Typhoon “Ruby” (international name: Hagupit).

“We are continually assessing the situation…. We’ll know in the coming days,” deputy presidential spokesperson Abigail Valte said over government radio on Sunday, citing the contingency and calamity funds in the national budget.

“That’s the reason why we have such funds so that we could make them available right away to assist our local governments,” she said.

The Catholic Church is doing its share to raise more funds for the victims of Ruby, the strongest to hit the country so far this year.

Its social action arm has launched a solidarity appeal to all the dioceses across the country for the fund-raising drive.

Valte said cities and towns were “more prepared” for typhoons following the country’s experience with Supertyphoon “Yolanda,” which killed more than 6,300 people last year.

But with Ruby making only its first landfall at the time of the interview, Valte said the government was hoping that the public would continue heeding official warnings.

“Better to err on the side of prudence and on the side of caution,” she said. “We don’t want our people to be harmed just because they didn’t take the warnings seriously.”

As of Sunday, there were a total of 332,524 people in evacuation centers of the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD), she said.

Food packs

Valte said the DSWD had prepared 358,380 family food packs for areas affected by the typhoon. She said the agency still had P68,366,000 in standby funds.

A total of 53,375 food packs were also available at the DSWD warehouse in Pasay City.

“Packing hubs in Cebu are also ready to release relief goods,” she said.

Despite the preparations, the Palace reiterated President Aquino’s appeal for the public to “stay alert” and continue following instructions from local governments.

“Typhoon Ruby is not yet over. Let us not be complacent. Let’s not panic but be alert to avoid accidents,” Valte said.

Alay Kapwa

According to CBCP News, the official news service of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines, Caceres Archbishop Rolando Tirona sent a letter to 85 bishops urging them to organize relief efforts in their respective dioceses.

Tirona, head of the National Secretariat for Social Action (Nassa)/Caritas Philippines, said the emergency funds from “Alay Kapwa,” the Church’s Lenten evangelization and fundraising program, were not enough considering the vast scope of the typhoon.

Nassa/Caritas Philippines have already released P2 million from Alay Kapwa and from other local and non-Caritas Internationalis funds for the purchase of relief goods, he said.

The relief goods have been prepositioned in possible typhoon-hit areas, he added.

“To the unaffected dioceses, we call on you to organize relief operations for the affected dioceses nearest you or you may choose to send your donations to the Alay Kapwa account for the relief operations of the Catholic Church network,” Tirona said in his letter.

The faithful, interested in helping Church relief operations, were advised to deposit donations in CBCP Caritas Filipinas Foundation Inc.’s Account No. 4951-0071-08 with Bank of the Philippine Islands.