Albay lady village chief feeds folk amidst ECQ

CAMALIG, Albay --- In a small village of Salugan here, barangay chief Shiela “Kap Shie” Dino is not only ensuring the safety of her constituents against the Coronavirus disease (Covid-19). She is also doing her best to address malnutrition through regular feeding of vulnerable individuals since the imposition of the enhanced community quarantine (ECQ).

Kap Shie has regularly conducted, thrice a week, a feeding program among the residents of her village in a bid to fight malnutrition specifically among children, persons with disability (PWD), pregnant and lactating women, and senior citizens.

Barangay Salugan, as of latest count, has 147 children aged 2 to 5 years old; 42 PWDs; 8 pregnant and 55 lactating mothers, and 170 senior citizens.

Salugan is an agricultural village of Camalig, Albay with a population of 2,236 comprising of 618 families. She said that the feeding program dubbed as “Kauswagan Pantawid Feeding Program” is given to the resident through house-to-house and zone-to-zone delivery with proper observance of social distancing measure.

“We commit to serve not to be served. We are conducting feeding program 3x a week to ensure the good nutritional status of the children while in lockdown,” she said.

When asked how much budget is allotted by barangay council for the feeding program, Kap Shie, a businesswoman before she became a punong barangay, said that she spent personal money as the council have no enough funds as they were spent for food ration since last month.

As part of the social distancing measure, she said “We are requiring everyone to put a chair outside their houses with ready food container, so we can easily put on the food for them as our way of observing social distancing. This is our way of combating malnutrition by providing nutritional food for children, pregnant, lactating women and our senior citizens.”

The name of the village, Salugan, came from the word “Saludan,” which means to fetch water in the spring, locally called as “burabod”. Before, Salugan village is known for abaca, coconut trees, pineapple and other natural resources.

Today, the village is famous for “pinangat.” Root crops and vegetables are also grown in its fertile soil near the slope of Mount Mayon.

Salugan was twice visited by Miss Earth International candidates for pro-environment activity in 2018 and 2019.