BAGUIO CITY – Some 1,061 families or 3,972 individuals in four provinces of the Cordillera Administrative Region (CAR) were initially affected by the wrath of Typhoon Marce over the past few days.
Dr. Maria Catbagan-Aplaten, regional director of the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) said they were able to attend to these people in cooperation with concerned local government units and agencies.
Apayao recorded the highest number of affected families with 976 (2,871 individuals) followed by Abra with 75 families (172 individuals), Mountain Province with nine families (22 individuals) and Kalinga with one family composed of seven.
A total of 1,058 families (3,064 people) fled their homes during the height of the typhoon. Some 760 families (2,165 persons) are staying inside various evacuation centers, while 298 families (899 individuals), temporarily relocated elsewhere.
Initially, Aplaten reported that there are two partially damaged houses in the region during the wrath of ‘Marce,’ but the same could increase once various reports from the different DSWD offices were collated.
Thus far, the DSWD-CAR was able to provide more than P245,783.50 worth of assistance while local governments were able to provide more than P31,906.00 as their counterpart to sustain the provision of aid to the typhoon-affected individuals.
Aplaten claimed that their regional office is continuously monitoring typhoon-stricken areas in coordination with the local governments through the agency’s quick response teams to ensure that immediate assistance will be provided to the calamity victims.
At present, there are still some 63,394 available food packs worth P48.9 million and 25,056 non-food items worth P53.2 million for disposal to the calamity-stricken localities in the region to cater to the needs of the victims.
CAR is one of the regions that was significantly affected by the onslaught of ‘Marce.’ Heavily battered areas include the provinces of Apayao, Kalinga and parts of Abra and Mountain province. Minimal effects were reported in Benguet and Ifugao.
Aplaten said social workers were deployed in different calamity-stricken areas to assess the needs of the victims and to provide them with the initial assistance for them to cope with the effects of the latest weather disturbance.
