As the lead disaster response agency and head of the Food and Non-Food (FNI) Cluster, the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) earlier today convened a meeting at the Emergency Operations Center in Iligan City to discuss additional needs of Filipinos affected by the ongoing armed conflict in Marawi City. The results of the meeting will be raised during the Inter-Cluster Meeting of the National Response Cluster.

DSWD Sec. Judy M. Taguiwalo said that a month after the evacuees from Marawi began pouring into Iligan, Cagayan de Oro, Cotabato, and surrounding provinces, DSWD staff and staff of all other welfare and disaster units of the local governments have been working round the clock to document the numbers of the evacuees and provide for their immediate needs.

“We admit, however, that much still has to done to improve the assistance that we are providing the evacuees – especially those who are home-based,” she said.

Data from the DSWD reveal that the number of families staying outside evacuation centers is consistently higher than the number of families staying inside evacuation centers. The first recorded number of displaced families was at 9,236 (43,912 individuals), of which 1,017 took temporary shelter in 13 evacuation centers in neighboring municipalities. In the meantime, 8,219 chose to stay with families or relatives.

At present as of June 19, there are 69,296 families (338,536 individuals) displaced by the armed conflict, 6,244 of which are staying in 83 evacuation centers while 63,052 are staying outside evacuation centers, either with family or friends.

“We have also observed that the number of families staying inside and outside evacuation centers decrease and increase from time to time. This means that the affected families are very mobile. It is difficult to keep track of the movement of these families as some of them move from one evacuation center to another. This mobility is the precise explanation as to why the data has become bloated. According to the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA), the population of Marawi is at 187,106 in 2010 and was projected to be at 201,785 in 2015. The number of affected individuals are clearly beyond these figures. The families have been recorded in the place where they first found shelter and again when they moved to either a different evacuation center or outside evacuation center. This results to double counting,” she said.

In the meantime, based on the data presented by Evelyn Madrio, a staff of DSWD-Field Office (FO) X, more than 22,000 families who evacuated in Iligan City, Bacolod, Balo-i, Pantar, Pantao Ragat, and Tubod were already served by their regional office.

Meanwhile, Norhata Benito from the DSWD-FO XII said that about 1,600 families have yet to be served in areas from the Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) since they need smaller vehicles to reach areas with narrow roads, particularly in some barangays of the Municipality of Saguiaran.

Aside from updates from responding FOs, Lawrence Anthony Dimailig from the DSWD Disaster Response Assistance and Management Bureau (DReAMB) presented a Gaps Monitoring Matrix to better identify areas where services have to be strengthened. This matrix will be shared to assisting FOs and the DSWD-ARMM who shall work closely with DReAMB staff to update the matrix.

Lastly, cleaning materials will be provided to evacuees so they can clean and disinfect the evacuation centers where they are currently staying. #