IN TIMES of need, local governments draw strength from each other.
Baguio officials during Monday’s executive-legislative meeting agreed for the allotment of some P500,000 for the people of Bohol and Cebu which were heavily devastated by the magnitude-7.2 earthquake.
The City Council on joint and collective motion during their regular session approved the appropriation citing the impact of the earthquake on the residents of the Visayan provinces.
Councilor Betty Lourdes Tabanda also moved for an inquiry by the city government to the Mandaue city government, a sister-city, to assess its current needs for social services and if it had incurred devastation from the tremor.
Tabanda, who chairs the Committee on Social Services, Women and Urban Poor, also suggested to Mayor Mauricio Domogan during the executive-legislative meeting for the setting up of a fundraising and donation drive at City Hall for the quake victims.
Several councilors committed to help in the drive to be conducted in City Hall.
Tabanda said donations in cash and in kind will be received with corresponding receipt to be given to those who wish to extend help to earthquake victims.
“We feel for them as previous victims of an earthquake, if you have extra blessings in your home, we encourage everyone to share those blessings to those in need in the Visayas,” she said.
Mayor Domogan earlier extended the city’s sympathies to those who have died in the recent earthquake in the Visayas adding the affected local governments can draw inspiration from the city’s rising amidst the obstacles after the 1990 Luzon earthquake.
Earlier, the city government has also extended P200,000 financial help to another sister city, Zamboanga City, after a stand-off between insurgents and government troops displaced several residents and affected the local economy of the southern city.