Negros Occ town needs help to feed Kanlaon evacuees
BACOLOD CITY—The mayor of La Castellana town in Negros Occidental is appealing for help for the food and other needs of evacuees displaced by the eruption of Mt. Kanlaon last Dec. 9, 2024.
Mayor Rhummyla Nicor Mangilimutan said that if they needed to attend to at least 4,427 people in evacuation centers over a prolonged period of time, they would run out of funds.
While the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) had publicly assured it had prepared food and essentials for the evacuees, the municipal government is still spending for the lunch and dinner of the evacuees, she said.
The DSWD provisions are used for breakfast needs, she said.
“The town does not have the resources to spend about P15 million a month for the evacuees’ food over a long period of time,” she said last Wednesday.
If the situation worsens and an alert level 4 will be raised over Mt. Kanlaon, the more the municipal government will not have sufficient funds for the evacuees whose number is expected to increase, she added.
La Castellana has an annual budget of about P355 million but it also has to be used for other services, noting that the town has about 84,000 residents “who also need basic and social services,” Mangilimutan said.
The mayor said she raised her concerns in a meeting with Office of Civil Defense (OCD) Administrator Ariel Nepomuceno at the capitol in Bacolod City on Jan. 15.
If the La Castellana evacuees would be transferred to a tent city in the nearby Himamaylan City, Mangilimutan wanted to know who would take care of them as she had not signed a memorandum of agreement yet on the relocation of her town’s evacuees to that area.
Mangilimutan said the La Castellana town government is not bringing back to local shelters the evacuees living outside the 6-kilometer danger zone who went home last week, as recommended by the OCD.
“La Castellana is compliant with the rule that only persons within the 6-kilometer danger zone must evacuate,” she said.
OCD officials led by Nepomuceno visited Negros Occidental on Wednesday to see the condition of Mt. Kanlaon and the evacuees “so we can report to the President accurately.”
Nepomuceno said they wanted to ensure that everything was in place to carry out the swift evacuation of about 110,000 residents within the 10-km radius of Mt. Kanlaon if alert level 4 is raised.
There are currently 10,031 displaced persons in 23 evacuation centers in La Castellana, La Carlota City and Bago City in Negros Occidental, and Canlaon City in Negros Oriental.
