SEVEN municipalities heeded the call of the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) Field Office VI to submit their list of El Nino-affected families.

This revealed Luna Moscoso of the Protective Services Unit (PSU) of DSWD.

The towns were identified as Janiuay, Sta. Barbara, Oton, Alimodian and Miag-ao, all in Iloilo Province; and Cuartero and Maayon in Capiz.

“These municipalities will first receive our augmentation for El Nino affected families in form of rice and assorted canned goods,” said Moscoso.

Each family will get four packs with six kilos of rice and assorted canned goods or equivalent to 24 kilos of rice and 40 canned goods.

Moscoso said that these LGUs have schedule with DSWD to get the food packs already.

Earlier, the DSWD has called on LGUs to submit the masterlist of those affected along with the proposal in reaction to a protest action held by Pamanggas outside the agency compound.

“The food packs are ready for dispatch. But we cannot release them without the list of those affected from the LGUs,” said Rebecca P. Geamala, regional director.
She also emphasized that disaster response remains to be the responsibility of the localities and DSWD only augments resources.
“Along with the rest of the government, both LGUs and other agencies, DSWD recognizes the urgency of responding to the situation of hunger affecting the poor. We are ready to augment the LGUs,” said Geamala./dswd6/May Grecia-Rago