CEBU CITY, July 11 — About 30,000 relief goods prepared by the Duterte Cabinet Spouses Association Inc. (DCSAI) will be ferried from Cebu to Marawi City on Wednesday.
This was announced by Bhai Norhata Alonto, wife of Mindanao Development Authority (MinDA) Chairman Datu Abul Khayr Alonto, in a press conference here Monday afternoon.
Alonto said the DCSAI has been collecting cash donations and in kind and has never stopped its delivery of relief goods to Marawi since the start of the siege.
“Whatever and how many we have gathered, we immediately deliver it to the affected people and families in Marawi, especially those who are still in the evacuation center,” Alonto said. “You can just imagine living in an evacuation center. It is very far from being comfortable.”
She also said that the transmission of disease, like cough and colds, is easy in a sardine-like proximity within the evacuation center, and that is why their relief packs include a hygiene kit.
Each pack of relief goods contains five kilos of rice, a blanket, groceries specifically with no pork, a mosquito net, and hygiene kit with toothbrush, toothpaste, and soap.
The DCSAI relief goods will be ferried to Marawi via Iligan City by Landing Craft 299 of the Philippine Navy.
“I believe that everything happens for a reason, with the will of God, with the will of Allah. Because through this incident, we realize that we belong to this country, we belong to this nation. Because we feel that we are loved, indeed we are not enemies. We can be one nation because we never felt as much welcome, as much love after what happened in Marawi,” Alonto said. (LBG/USJR intern Levirose Caballero/PNA)
