By Jennifer P. Rendon
Ilonggos welcomed the Iloilo Police Provincial Office (IPPO)’s initiative to provide basic goods.
The IPPO estimated that 3,000 households benefited from the Bayanihan Kiosk Program which kicked off on April 21, 2020.
On the first day of operation, Police Colonel Paul Kenneth Lucas, Iloilo police chief, said they were overwhelmed by the throng of people who availed of the goods during the Bayanihan Kiosks’ launching.
According to the monitoring of Iloilo PNP Community Affairs and Development Unit, 3,088 households availed of essential goods at Bayanihan Kiosks after they were simultaneously opened in all Quarantine Control Points province-wide.
An estimated P817,540 of goods was distributed from both PNP and civilian donors.
The IPPO established 46 kiosks – one each in the 42 municipal and 1 city police stations, two in the Iloilo Mobile Force Company, and one at the IPPO headquarters.
“On Day 1, queues of recipients were very long and many generous people responded to our call for bayanihan,” Lucas said.
The Bayanihan Kiosk is an innovation of the Iloilo PNP to encourage sharing and support among members of the community.
It serves as the avenue where families with extra goods can donate and those who are in need may get a supply for their daily consumption.
Variety of goods is available at the Bayanihan Kiosks, such as rice, fish, vegetables, noodles, soft drinks, fruits, condiments, meat, and eggs.
“Indeed, the Ilonggos are generous and caring,” Lucas, who has been assigned in Western Visayas for more than four years, said.
The Iloilo top cop is banking on such generosity to buoy the project until the remaining days of the enhanced community quarantine.
Meanwhile, Lucas said mobile Bayanihan Kiosks will augment the distribution of goods, especially in far-flung barangays.
Patrol cars will be temporarily transformed into a kiosk to serve this purpose.
The IPPO conceptualized Bayanihan Kiosk to propel community sharing in response to the extended ECQ to fight the coronavirus disease 2019.
Lucas has earlier said that the kiosks will be a big help in addressing the depleting food provision, most especially of poor families whose source of livelihood was affected by the ECQ.
