TIMELY AID. Representatives of the 1,327 barangay health care workers and farmers who benefited from the provincial government’s “Handog Pasasalamat” program pose with North Cotabato Governor Nancy Catamco (back, 3rd from right) during turnover ceremonies in Barangay Malabuan of Makilala town on Thursday (Sept. 23, 2021). The program intends to help health workers and farmers in the town’s 38 villages cope with the crisis brought by the pandemic. (Photo courtesy of North Cotabato PIO)
MAKILALA, North Cotabato – A total of 1,327 community health workers and farmers on Thursday received cash and relief grants from the provincial government under the “Handog Pasasalamat” program in Barangay Malabuan here.
North Cotabato Governor Nancy Catamco, together with other local officials, led the ceremonial turnover of cash and other incentives to representatives of 929 health workers and 398 farmers coming from the town’s 38 barangays.
Each beneficiary received PHP4,200, five kilos of rice, and sanitation kits.
“This is our way of gratitude to these silent warriors that risk their lives in responding to the coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic”, the governor said in her message during the ceremony.
Catamco also turned over farm inputs for the town’s agriculture sector through the Office of the Provincial Agriculturist (OPAG).
The program benefited 398 farmers who received budded rubber and cacao seedlings; corn and rice seeds; hito (catfish) and tilapia (cichlid fish) fingerlings; and vegetable seedlings.
Some 1,100 ducklings were also distributed to 36 duck farmers under the Department of Agriculture’s Special Area of Agriculture Development program.
Barangay Malabuan chairman Alex Lalaguna lauded the provincial government’s program that intends to help barangay constituents affected by the crisis brought by Covid-19.
“We appreciate much the help of the provincial government as we, being a far-flung area, is one of those severely affected by the crisis,” he said in the vernacular.
Malabuan is among the 32 villages in the province listed as a recipient of the PHP 20-million Barangay Development Project each under the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict. (PNA)
