Cabral assures continuous intervention for oil spill victims
Secretary Esperanza I. Cabral of DSWD visits the
Regional Rehabilitation Center for Youth (RRCY),
also the Disaster Operations Center for the Solar
Oil Spill, in Nueva Valencia, Guimaras Province.
(Inset) The outside view of RRCY.
Secretary Esperanza I. Cabral of the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) assured here of continuous help to victims of Solar Oil Spill.
"As form of crisis intervention, Cash for Work and Food for Work will be implemented," said Cabral during a dialogue with Guimaras Governor JC Rahman Nava on September 19, 2006 at the Provincial Capitol. This will help other affected families to participate and work not only for the clean-up operations.
The expanded Cash for Work and Food for Work which will be implemented and funded by DSWD will depend on the proposal of the Local Government Units. Initially, this would include other community activities like communal vegetable gardening, clean and green projects, setting up community kitchen in the evacuation centers and repair of day care centers. The social preparation of affected families shall be jointly undertaken by DSWD and the Local Government Unit social workers. They will be paid P200 per day. The funding will be taken from the standby funds of DSWD.
Cabral also shared to Nava that DSWD proposed a P400 million fund for its rehabilitation plan—this is a portion of the P1.5 billion fund of the National Disaster Coordinating Council (NDCC).
One of the plans is assigning community organizers in affected barangays to undertake organizing process prior to the implementation of alternative livelihood.
During the dialogue, which was also attended by OIC Regional Director Teresita Rosales of DSWD, Nava laid out the 8-short term plans of the province on the calamity.
These include Relief operations, Acquisition and operationalization of monitoring equipment, Coordination Arrangement, Alternative livelihood, infrastructure support and relocation, evaluation and elimination of source, surveillance and containment, and establishment and operationalization of monitoring center.
At present, the DSWD has released P3.9 million in its relief operations for the victims of the oil spill. A total of 4,911 family packs were distributed directly to affected families. Some goods channeled through the Provincial Government include luncheon meat (maling), tents, noodles, milk, coffee and rice coming from East Asia Rice Reserve (EARR).
/DSWD6/May Castillo