The Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) already extended over one million boxes of family food packs (FFPs) to families affected by Tropical Cyclones ‘Marce,’ ‘Nika,’ ‘Ofel,’ and ‘Pepito,’ an agency official said on Monday.
“Based on our latest tally, we have already released 1,007,121 family food packs in response to Marce, Nika, Ofel and Pepito,” the DSWD Assistant Secretary and spokesperson Irene Dumlao said.
The relief packs have reached disaster-affected families across the Ilocos Region, Cagayan Valley, Central Luzon, Calabarzon, Mimaropa, Bicol, and Eastern Visayas.
Dumlao said majority of the FFPs released or 511,024 were extended to Cagayan Valley, one of the regions hardest-hit by the successive cyclones that battered the country in November.
The DSWD official assured that despite the significant number of FFPs released, the agency’s stockpile remains stable due to the continuous repacking of FFPs in the major production hubs, as well as the prepositioning of food packs in agency and local government units-owned warehouse facilities
“We do not wish for more typhoons to come. However, just like what Secretary Rex Gatchalian always says, we are always preparing for the worst so we can roll out the best response possible,” Dumlao pointed out.
As of December 2, the agency maintains more than P101 million in standby funds and P2.1 billion worth of food and non-food items (FNFIs) nationwide.
