BONTOC, Mountain Province – The provincial government and the management of EN Clean gasoline station distributed more or less 1,500 food packs to stranded students, workers and other individuals in the Baguio-La Trinidad-Itogon-Sablan-Tuba-Tublay (BLISTT) area to help them cope with the prevailing crisis due to the Corona Virus Disease (COVID) 2019 global pandemic that led to the declaration of the previous Luzonwide enhanced community quarantine (ECQ).
Gov. Bonifacio C. Lacwasan, Jr. stated that the food packs that were distributed to the stranded individuals in the BLISTT over the past several days were composed of several kilos of rice, sugar, canned goods and other basic items needed by the people to cope with the difficulty of having access to the said goods because of the strict implementation of ECQ and general community quarantine (GCQ) policies.
Aside from continuously distributing relief assistance to the people of the province’s 10 towns who were heavily impacted by the ECQ implementation, the governor said that the provincial government and its individual and group partners are also exerting extra effort to reach out to the stranded individuals from the province who were not able to go home and are in different places outside the province.
Lacwasan pointed out that even if the province’s status was downgraded, the provincial government and the municipal governments continue to implement the ECQ policies but with slight relaxation on some of the sectors that were allowed by the national inter-agency task force for the management of emerging and re-emerging infectious diseases to operate with strict adherence to physical distancing and mandatory wearing of face masks policies as well as the limited operation of mass public transportation, except buses.
He expressed his gratitude to Florante ‘ Timoy’ Astudillo, Jr., manager of EN Clean gasoline station, for his enormous contributions in the provision of relief assistance to the stranded people from Mountain Province in the BLISTT area because he allowed his residence in Pinget to be the headquarters of the relief operations and the use of his vehicles for the distribution of the goods to those who have difficulty in going to the distribution area because of the absence of mass public transportation in Baguio City.
Earlier, the provincial government embraced the east-west trade system where goods produced in the eastern towns were purchased by the province and distributed as relief goods in the western towns and vice versa that proved to be instrumental in sustaining the vibrance of the local agriculture sector.
The eastern towns of the province are Bontoc, Sadanga, Barlig, Natonin and Paracelis while the western towns are Bauko, Tadian, Sabangan, Sagada and Besao.
Eastern Mountain Province is a known source of quality fruits and corn while western Mountain Province is a producer of highland vegetables that are usually being traded at the La Trinidad vegetable trading post and the Benguet Atri Pinoy Trading Center (BAPTC) based in the capital town of La Trinidad, Benguet.
Lacwasan also commended the hundreds of frontliners in the different parts of the province for a job well done in sustaining the status of the province as COVID-free and for the people for their cooperation and understanding to the implemented polices.
By Hent