Senator Joel Villanueva said on Friday he will continue to help the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) to improve its services, especially in times of disasters.

Villanueva made the assurance following the ceremonial turnover and inspection of 11 delivery trucks and heavy-duty forklifts at the DSWD National Resource Operations Center (NROC) in Pasay City.

The NROC is a production resource center which can produce an average of 20,000 food packs a day. It basically serves the entire Luzon cluster, but can also provide augmentation supply to other regions in times of calamity.

“Kailangan talaga i-capacitate natin nang husto yung ating mga departamento at ayaw ni Secretary Rex [Gatchalian] na maiwan yung DSWD kaya sabi ko, ako na yung volunteer na tutulong sa kanya (We really need to capacitate our departments and Sec. Rex doesn’t want DSWD to be left behind so I said, I’ll volunteer to help him),” Villanueva said in a media interview.

“In this coming budget [deliberations], I will make sure that again, as always, I will be part of DSWD’s vision na ma-capacitate sila at maging world-class yung kanilang serbisyo sa ating mga kababayan (to capacitate them and make their services for our people world-class),” he said.

Gatchalian thanked Villanueva for prioritizing their request to be included in the General Appropriations Act (GAA) next year.

“Pinagtuunan niya [ito] ng pansin during the budget season (last year). Nilaban niya para magkaroon ng entrada sa GAA at ito na yung bunga ng kanyang paglaban para sa DSWD (He focused on this during the budget season last year. He fought for it to be included in GAA, and this is the result of his fight for DSWD),” Gatchalian said, referring to the additional equipment for the NROC.

The total project cost of the equipment was PHP46.6 million, which was funded through Villanueva’s Disaster Response allocation.

The wing vans and forklifts are the second batch of equipment provided by Villanueva to the DSWD this year, following the earlier turnover of 14 mobile command vehicles.

“This is the biggest one-time investment in logistics of DSWD,” Gatchalian said.

The occasion also marked a significant achievement, as the DSWD reinforced its disaster response capabilities alongside the mechanized production of family food packs using the mobile production system granted by the World Food Programme. (PNA)