Compassion towards people in need has triggered Mayor Gabino Ganggangan of Sadanga, Mountain Province to divert relief packs from the government with a request that such relief packs be given to the less fortunate in other areas.
In a public advisory posted on his personal social media account, Ganggangan said he has ordered the Sadanga Municipal Social Welfare and Development Office to relay to the regional office that the municipality is not availing of these food packs.
A sealed food pack from the Department of Social Welfare and Development Office contains six kilos rice, assorted canned goods, coffee, and sugar, among other basic items.
The mayor also affirmed that his landlocked municipality will not receive relief packs even if the enhanced community quarantine will be extended after April 12. Most local government units in the Cordillera will implement the ECQ until April 15.
“It is not that we don’t have poor and needy families, but I believe that, we, as tribal communities, still have and should sustain our ‘built-in’ and homegrown or indigenous social structure, values, and practice of taking care of our respective relatives or kin, neighbors, or kailyan in distress during hard times or economic crisis,” Ganggangan said.
Sadanga, which is a fifth-class municipality, has a population of 8,799 individuals based on a government survey in 2015.
The mayor shared it has been a time-tested practice in the municipality that the “kadangyans” or well-off families or clans extend help to their needy relatives and neighbors by lending their food supplies and animals.
“Should this crisis extend longer to the extent that our needy families really run out of their rice supplies, we shall mandate the ‘kadangyans’ of every barangay to open up their rice granaries (agamang) to sustain us through to the next harvest season,” Ganggangan said.
“I assure that no family shall go hungry in our municipality even during these hard times,” he added.
He also appealed to the national government through the concerned citizens to feed the poor in cities and less fortunate in other areas who can’t sustain themselves. – Harley F. Palangchao
