Malacañang releases P130M for Mt. Kanlaon blast response
BACOLOD CITY – President Marcos has allocated P130 million to help communities affected by the Dec. 9 eruption of Mt. Kanlaon on Negros Island.
Raul Fernandez, director of the Office of Civil Defense (OCD) in Western Visayas and chair of Task Force Kanlaon, said P70 million of the allocation will go to the OCD Quick Response Fund (QRF) to be used in all affected areas, mostly located in Negros Occidental.
Canlaon City, the lone affected locality in Negros Oriental, got P30 million while the province received a separate P30 million for their eruption response work.
The distribution of the funds for Negros Oriental was facilitated by the Special Assistant to the President, Secretary Antonio Lagdameo Jr., during a meeting on Friday with Negros Oriental Representatives Manuel “Chiquiting” Sagarbarria and Chaco Sagarbarria, as well as Canlaon City Mayor Jose Chubasco Cardenas.
Cardenas last week sought help from the national government as the city government could only sustain the needs of their evacuees for a few days.
Joel Erestain, director of OCD Central Visayas, said they were “grateful to President Marcos for this early Christmas gift,” adding the funds would “significantly ease the burdens of those affected by the Kanlaon eruption,” most of whom would have to spend the holidays inside the evacuation centers.
The OCD central office, he said, also granted a fuel allocation of P1 million per month to support Canlaon City’s needs.
“This fuel will be used for relief operations, including transportation, the use of heavy equipment for clearing operations, and generators,” Erestain said.
Number of displaced
As of Saturday, 14,000 residents are staying in evacuation centers in the two Negros provinces, most of whom were preemptively evacuated amid continuing threats posed by Mt. Kanlaon following its eruption on Dec. 9.
A total of 6,282 evacuees were from La Castellana town, 470 in Bago City and 1,518 in La Carlota City–all in Negros Occidental. At least 6,092 others were displaced in Canlaon City, Negros Oriental.
Fernandez said the cities of Himamaylan and Kabankalan in Negros Occidental are preparing to accommodate an increase in evacuees from La Castellana if the Alert Level at Mt. Kanlaon is raised from 3 (high level of volcanic unrest) to 4 (hazardous eruption imminent).
“We are doing preparatory work for the possible expansion of the Kanlaon danger zone from six to ten kilometers. That would mean an increase in the number of evacuees,” Fernandez said.
State volcanologists have earlier told Negros officials and residents to remain vigilant as another eruption remained likely.
The OCD also warned that the tons of ash deposited on the volcano’s slopes by the Dec. 9 eruption could become a life- threatening lahar flow in the event of heavy rainfall.
Mingo meals
Meanwhile, private groups have also been assisting the evacuees, including the Negrense Volunteers for Change (NVC) Foundation, which has provided meals and food supplies to 4,919 families in 25 evacuation centers in the two Negros provinces.
The Bacolod-based organization, which had deployed an emergency relief team to deliver food provisions to three evacuation centers within 5 hours after Mt. Kanlaon’s explosion, has provided 45,322 Mingo meals either mixed on site or given to families to keep for the coming days.
Mingo is NVC’s instant complementary food used for its nutrition programs which is made of rice, monggo, malunggay and flavored with naturally grown cocoa, ube or squash.
Because of its convenience, it has been used in disaster relief sites across the country including Marawi, Taal and Tacloban, said NVC president Millie Kilayko.
NVC has also given 6,905 tins of assorted canned foods, 1,451 packs of bread, 11,505 face masks and 1,301 hygiene kits to the Mt. Kanlaon evacuees.
It has also organized parties for children in some evacuation centers which included games and art exercises.
Their conduct of distribution of groceries and hygiene kits has been cited by the recipients as a different experience.
“To save at least a day of repacking, we bring the food provision in their wholesale cartons directly, and display these on the tables for the recipients to pick their choices. We provide them a bag which they use to stuff the goods they prefer. We only tell them the maximum number they could get from the stock, but they do the picking,” Kilayko said.
