ARMM gov't employees donate P100 each for 'Yolanda' victims

COTABATO CITY - Each of the more than 20,000 rank-and-file employees of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) on Thursday started shelling out P100 as monetary support to relief efforts for typhoon-ravaged communities in the Visayas.

ARMM Gov. Mujiv Hataman earlier issued a memorandum enjoining employees of different line agencies and support offices under the Office of the Regional Governor to extend monetary support to expand the operations in the Visayas of the region’s Humanitarian Emergency Assistance and Relief Team (HEART).

The HEART, which is jointly supervised by Hataman and Regional Executive Secretary Laisa Alamia, has already facilitated three shipments of 70 tons of relief supplies -- comprised of food packs, sleeping mats, folding beds, water jugs, hygiene kits, and medicines --- to Leyte in the past ten days.

“The ARMM employees are not being forced to give out P100 each. It’s voluntary. We are thankful that there were many employees that even gave out more than the amount asked from them,” Hataman told reporters.

Hataman said he is also grateful to the local government units in the autonomous region, among them the provincial governments in its five component-provinces, for embarking on their separate relief missions for typhoon victims too.

Among the first to dispatch relief teams to Leyte immediately after the super typhoon Yolanda (Haiyan) onslaught were the ARMM’s HEART and the provincial government of Maguindanao.

Reports reaching Hataman’s office stated that Maguindanao’s relief team, led by Gov. Esmael Mangudadatu, had already distributed 18,000 food packs, seven tons of frozen Tilapia harvested from Lake Buluan, and P8.4 million worth of medicines for various ailments, to residents of Tacloban City and six adjoining Leyte towns.

The HEART dispatched 20 more tons of relief supplies to Leyte last Tuesday, accompanied by medics and rehabilitation experts from different provincial health offices and regional line agencies.