The city government has deployed rolling stores to bring food and other essential supplies closer to local communities amid the ongoing enhanced community quarantine.

Mayor Ronnel Rivera said Monday at least 4 trucks converted into mobile stores have been going around the city’s 26 barangays and selling various food products and basic goods directly to residents.

Rivera said the mobile “talipapa” rolled out on Saturday in five barangays and will cover eight more in the next two days.

“This aims to minimize the need for our residents to go to the public markets and malls to purchase food and prevent person-to-person contact in the process,” he said in a radio interview.

The mayor said the prices of all commodities — rice, vegetables, fresh fruits, fish as well as fresh and processed meat products–are regulated “so that anyone can afford them.”

An advisory posted on the local government’s Facebook page said only residents wearing face masks and carrying quarantine passes duly issued by the barangay councils were allowed to buy from the mobile stores.

Meanwhile, the city government released over the weekend an initial 2,500 sacks of rice to the barangays to facilitate their repacking and immediate distribution to the identified recipients.

Rivera said they have identified a total of 46,351 households as initial recipients of the “survival food packs” comprising “indigent, marginalized and vulnerable” households.

The mayor said he also directed the barangay councils to submit lists of displaced workers and residents who lost their livelihood due to the heightened quarantine measures over the 2019 coronavirus disease or Covid-19 threat. (PNA)