More than 1M food packs prepositioned as DSWD prepares for Mawar

Manila, Philippines – More than 1 million family food packs (FFPs) and a total of 307,664 non-food items (NFIs) were already prepositioned in all regions in preparation for tropical cyclone Mawar, the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) said.

The said items were also ready at the DSWD National Resource Operations Center (NROC) and Visayas Disaster Resource Center (VDRC).

This was based on the directive of President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. to preposition relief items in the entire country as part of the augmentation support to local government units (LGUs) that will be affected by the super typhoon.

Secretary Rex Gatchalian thanked the Department of National Defense (DND) officials for their assistance in transporting FFPs to Batanes that has been forecasted to be one of the areas that will be affected by the tropical cyclone, based on the weather forecast of the Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration (PAGASA).

“Thank you to DND, PAGASA, and DOST for providing us with necessary tools. Everybody, thank you kasi we all know that relief operations require all this data and the logistics to it. So maraming salamat on behalf of the DSWD bureaucracy,” the DSWD chief said.

The Department, through its field offices said it is also continuously coordinating with concerned LGUs, as the first responders in the occurrence of natural and man-made calamities, to ensure that sufficient relief items are ready for distribution to families whose areas are expected to be hit by Tropical Cyclone Mawar.