DSWD rolls out cash aid for 1,600 Iloilo sugar workers hit by RSSI

The Department of Social Welfare and Development has begun distributing emergency cash assistance to 1,600 sugarcane farmers and farm workers in Passi City, Iloilo, affected by the Red-Striped Soft Scale Insect infestation.

The assistance is being provided under the Unified Package for Livelihoods, Industry, Food and Transport Assistance-Emergency Cash Transfer program.

DSWD Secretary Rex Gatchalian said the agency is coordinating with the Iloilo provincial government to reach around 6,000 to 7,000 affected sugarcane planters and laborers in Passi City.

“We are ready to help because we are already doing it now in Capiz, we are already doing it now in Negros Occidental and Negros Oriental, and we know that here in Iloilo, RSSI is also spreading,” Gatchalian said in an interview with Bombo Radyo Iloilo.

Passi City was the first local government unit in Iloilo to declare a state of calamity because of the infestation.

Gatchalian said beneficiary lists are being provided by local agricultural offices and that the DSWD is prepared to extend assistance to other municipalities as validation continues.

“We understand that there are other municipalities affected, and that more municipalities have sugarcane plantations infested [by RSSI],” he said.

New disaster relief warehouse

The DSWD also inspected a new disaster relief warehouse in Barangay Tumcon Ilaya, Pototan, Iloilo, on Monday.

The facility was donated by the municipal government of Pototan and is intended to expand the agency’s prepositioned food supply in Western Visayas.

Gatchalian said the warehouse will help double Iloilo’s prepositioned family food packs from 100,000 to 200,000.

The facility currently stores 10,000 family food packs and is expected to increase its capacity to 100,000 by November and 150,000 upon completion of its third phase early next year.

Gatchalian said the DSWD maintains a national stockpile of 5.2 million family food packs for disaster and emergency response.