MANKAYAN, Benguet April 02 – The municipal government approved the grant of a total of P1.2 million financial assistance to the town’s twelve barangays to augment their respective disaster risk reduction and management funds to allow them to provide the immediate relief assistance among others to the vulnerable and marginalized residents living in their areas of jurisdiction.
Mayor Frenzel A. Ayong said each of the barangays will be getting some P100,000 each as augmentation of their disaster risk reduction and management funds for the barangay officials to have the discretion on the use of their quick response funds in providing the needed assistance for their vulnerable and marginalized constituents through the procurement of the needed supply of rice and the basic needs of the people.
He said the municipal government will closely monitor the use of the quick response funds of the barangays to ensure these go to the immediate relief assistance of their vulnerable and marginalized constituents for them to survive the crisis caused by the ongoing implementation of the Luzon-wide enhanced community quarantine.
Ayong expressed his gratitude to the members of the municipal council for immediately approving the proposal to appropriate the aforesaid amount for the barangays as augmentation for their disaster risk reduction and management funds to allow the barangay officials to fulfill their duties and responsibilities as frontliners in the ongoing anti-COVID-19 campaign.
Further, the mayor claimed the municipal government will also be distributing some 10 kilos of rice to identified vulnerable and marginalized sectors as the municipal government’s relief assistance for the poorest of the poor aside from the vegetables donated by farmers from Balili for the residents from lower Mankayan.
“We are grateful to our farmers from Balili for providing us with sufficient supply of vegetables to be included in our relief assistance for our vulnerable and marginalized constituents in lower Mankayan. It only shows that our time-honored bayanihan spirit is very much alive during these trying times,” Mayor Ayong stressed.
According to him, the municipal government will be giving their relief assistance to the vulnerable and marginalized sectors soonest as people are now feeling the brunt of the Luzon-wide enhanced community quarantine due to the loss of their livelihood from the stoppage of the economic activities in the different parts of the country that heavily impacts on the informal sector.
Ayong appealed to the residents of the municipality for their utmost understanding in the distribution of relief assistance to the vulnerable and marginalized sectors as the municipal government and the barangays are doing their best to remedy the situation so that whatever available relief assistance will be distributed to them.
He also called for the cooperation of the people in the ongoing implementation of the strict rules and regulations governing the enhanced community quarantine for their own protection, safety, security and health and spare them from the deadly virus.
By Dexter A. See
