BAGUIO CITY – Some one thousand sixty-one families in four provinces in the Cordillera have been initially affected by the wrath of Typhoon Marce over the past several days.
Dr. Maria Catbagan-Aplaten, regional director of the Cordillera office of the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD-CAR) said that there are some 3,072 individuals that comprise the affected families where concerned government agencies and local governments were able to attend to their immediate needs.
Apayao recorded the most number of affected families with 976 composed of 2,871 individuals followed by Abra with 75 families composed of 172 individuals, Mountain Province – nine families composed of 22 persons and Kalinga – one family composed of seven individuals.
Further, there are some 760 families composed of 2,165 persons who are inside various evacuation centers while there are 298 families composed of 899 individuals who are outside evacuation centers.
Initially, Aplaten reported that there are two partially damaged houses in the region during the wrath of the weather disturbance but the same could increase once the various reports from the different social welfare and development offices shall have been collated.
According to her, the DSWD-CAR was able to provide more than P245,783.5 worth of assistance while local governments were able to provide more than P31,906.00as their counterpart to sustain the provision of aid to the typhoon-affected individuals.
Aplaten claimed that the DSWD-CAR is conducting continuous monitoring of the typhoon-stricken areas in the region 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 which is for disposal to the calamity-stricken ares in the region to cater to the needs of the victims.
The Cordillera is one of the regions that had been significantly affected by the wrath of Typhoon Marce where the heavily battered areas were Apayao, Kalinga and parts of Abra and Mountain province while minimal effects were reported in Benguet and Ifugao.
The DSWD-CAR official said that the agency’s personnel have been deployed in the 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 weather disturbance.
Earlier, the agency had been deploying assistance to the victims of the wrath of Typhoons Kristine and Leo that significantly affected most parts of the region when the said weather disturbances prevailed over the country over the past two weeks.
Aplaten assured that the agency has sufficient food and non-food items that could be immediately distributed to the calamity victims because the DSWD prepared for the expected wrath of the weather disturbances during this time of the year following the earlier declaration of the State weather bureau that La Nina will affect the country from the last quarter of the year up to the first quarter of next year. By Dexter A. See
