Volunteers for the Bacolod City-based Vallacar Transit Inc. (VTI) distribute relief goods to quake victims housed at the Boy Scouts Camp in Barangay Old Bulatulan Makilala, North Cotabato. (PNA photos by Allan Nawal)
KIDAPAWAN CITY – The humanitarian response to the displacements caused by the series of earthquakes that hit North Cotabato since October 16, 2019 had been enormous, officials said yesterday.
The government and the private sector's response was overwhelming that the 8,265 families or 39,128 individuals being sheltered in 47 evacuation centers have more than enough food than they could consume for weeks.
“Donations continue to arrive. We have more than enough supply that could last for even one month,” Kidapawan Mayor Joseph Evangelista said on Friday, shortly before meeting Senator Emmanuel Pacquiao, who also came with several truckloads of food aid.
Evangelista said Pacquiao was the latest senator to visit his city to provide food aid to affected families.
Last week, Senator Christopher Go also came to distribute food aid.
Kidapawan has about 2,400 families displaced by the quakes.
Evangelista said the local government had decided that because food was no longer the problem, at least for about a month, it has focused its attention on another problem – the task of rebuilding lives and properties.
He said, for example, many families living in the barangays of Ilomavis, Balabag and Perez had to be relocated because their areas had become prone to landslides.
In Perez alone, landslide buried at least 40 hectares of properties, crops, and other structures.
“That's how big the task ahead of us is,” Evangelista said.
He said the local government has started consulting structural engineers and the Mines and Geosciences Bureau (MGB) for possible relocations areas for families affected by the no-build and no-habitation declaration covering the three villages.
“We have to ensure that those who will be permanently displaced will have new space to stay in,” Evangelista added.
Like Evangelista, Makilala officials are not worried about food supply as of yet.
Lito Cañedo, the assistant human resources officer and manager of the evacuation camp at the Boy Scouts compound in Bulatukan village, said the flow of supplies have continued with evacuees in possession of more food they can possibly consume in a month.
“The food supply is abundant and no one's getting hungry,” he said.
What worries them, though, Cañedo said is relocating the evacuees to other areas, particularly those from villages hit by landslides.
“The other problem, for now, is livelihood. We know that supplies would not be forever. The people need to have some form of livelihood, especially those who would not able to go back to farming even when the situation had normalized,” he said.
Evangelista said he is positive that after the chaos, normalcy would return to the affected areas, including Kidapawan City, North Cotabato's capital.
“We are very thankful for the response that we are getting. Every little help that we have received has a major impact on the lives of the people, emotionally and mentally,” he added. (PNA)
