CAGAYAN DE ORO CITY (PIA)--About 300 disbursing officers of Cagayan de Oro City Hall will be designated in the city’s various barangays to distribute cash aid to families and persons affected by the Enhanced Community Quarantine (ECQ) implementation in the city sometime this week.

"Most likely this coming Friday musugod ang atong financial assistance. I hope daghan sa atong mga empleyado mo-volunteer. Pinakagamay nga disbursing officer nga atong ma-mobilize karon is 300, kon puede 500 nga disbursing officer. The more, the better. Because, can you imagine, mag-distribute ka house-to-house? Dili sayon na," acting City Administrator Teddy Sabuga-a said.

(the distribution of the financial assistance will commence. I hope that a lot employees would volunteer. The least number of disbursing officer that we can mobilize is 300, if possible, we are targeting to have 500 disbursing officers. The more, the better.Why? Can you imagine distributing cash house-to-house? That’s not easy)

Sabuga-a made the disclosure during Monday’s virtual flag-raising ceremony at City Hall, a day before Cagayan de Oro City Mayor Oscar Moreno signed an agreement with the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD)-10 for the Special Assistance to Individuals in Crisis Situation (AICS) cash aid program.

In their regular Monday afternoon session, the 19th City Council approved an ordinance authorizing Mayor Moreno to sign the agreement with DSWD. The cash aid program is intended for families affected by the enhanced community quarantine status over the city.

"We have a 15-day time frame to distribute the cash assistance to the beneficiaries. Last time the city received 130,000 slots for the SAP (social amelioration program) cash aid and it took us almost a month to finish the cash distribution. We had people line up in gyms for the cash aid program so this is a big challenge for us," Sabuga-a said.

He added that the City Hall will coordinate with the Cagayan de Oro City Police Office and even the military to ensure security and monitoring of compliance to public health protocols during the cash distribution activity.

In the meantime, Sabuga-a said about 9,950 family food packs were distributed to employees who lost their jobs at the onset of the city’s ECQ.

The companies that closed were also tapped to distribute the family food packs to their former employees. (CIO/PIA-10)