By Dolly Yasa
BACOLOD City – Mayor Alfredo “Albee” Benitez said he realized that it is not only the residents of the flooded barangays who were affected by typhoon Goring but practically all residents of this city.
Benitez said he made the observation after declaring the city under a state of calamity last week.
Because of this, Benitez said on Tuesday in a press conference that all registered residents of the city 18 years old and above will each receive two kilos of “well-milled” rice.
Benitez said that in the past few days, he has been distributing food packs to affected families in the flooded barangays and brought hot meals to evacuees in the evacuation centers, “and then I realized that when I declared a state of calamity indi lang ya ang pumuluyo sang apat ka barangay ang apektado sang flooding nga natabo but the whole of Bacolod.”
“Tungod sina we propose to extend assistance to everyone, to every single registered resident of the city of Bacolod, we will extend rice assistance,” the mayor said.
He added that the tentative date to start the distribution is September 9, 2023 as the distribution process is still being finalized.
Benitez said that the city government has allocated P40 million from its calamity fund for the rice assistance program and aims to benefit 344,000 residents with two kilos of rice each.
He said this is about 14,000 sacks of rice which he said the city government has already purchased.
He stressed this will be distributed in schools by city government officials while incumbent barangay and SK officials as well as those running in the slated Barangay and SK elections will be prohibited from taking part in the activity.
“This is the first time that all registered residents in the city will be given rice assistance because of the flooding that hit the city,” the mayor.
Meanwhile, Benitez said he has met with concerned city government agencies to address flooding in the city especially when there is a typhoon.
“The best way to address this is prevention,” Benitez said.
He added that there are several ways to address the problem and that is clearing the waterways of trash at the same constructing floodgates in river mouths and establishing underground water reservoirs in some areas.
