The opening of year 2013 is a busy schedule for the DSWD Field Office Eight, as four major events will happen this second week of January. This was disclosed today by DSWD Eight Assistant Regional Director for Operation, Nestor Ramos, presently the officer-in-charge.

The Field Office will see a change of leadership, as a new regional chief will be installed on Thursday, January 10, 2013, at nine o’clock in the morning, at the Leyte Park Resort Hotel in Tacloban City. Officers of the Region Eight Administrators League (REAL), as well as other stakeholders coming from all over the region, have been invited to witness the occasion.

Meanwhile, outgoing Regional Director Leticia Diokno was installed today, January 8, as the incoming head of the DSWD Region Four – A, or the CALABARZON Region. However, she will be present in the turn-over ceremony on Thursday.

RemiaTapispisan of Antique, who is the outgoing Regional Director of DSWD Region Five, will sit as the new chief for the region.

The following day, January 11, will be the Signing of the Memorandum of Agreement between the local chief executives of eight municipalities, which comprise the Set Six areas for the PANTAWID PAMILYANG PILIPINO PROGRAM (PANTAWID PAMILYA) implementation. These are Tunga and Isabel municipalities of Leyte province; Guiuan, Sulat, Lawaan, and Mercedes of Eastern Samar; andAnahawan and Padre Burgos of Southern Leyte.

The event will be held at nine o’clock in the morning at the San Juanico Gulf and Country Club Resort in Cabalawan, Tacloban City. This will be followed right away with a press conference. All representatives of the tri-media are invited.

A media tour comes next, to the Core Shelter Project in Palanog, Tacloban City – a DSWD Eight and City of Tacloban partnership, with 200 duplex units intended for typhoon victims whose houses were totally destroyed. The DSWD Eight invested a total of 14 million pesos for the typhoon-resistant units, and counterparts of the lot and labor from the local government unit and community.

Ramos bared that last December 18, the World Vision – a civil society organization formally entered into a partnership with the Field Office, to oversee the implementation of PANTAWID PAMILYA, in ceremonies held at the Asia Stars in Tacloban City.

Meanwhile, the National Management Development Conference (NMDC) will formally open in the afternoon of Thursday at The Oriental Hotel Leyte in Baras, Palo, Leyte.   About 60 officials of the Department – from the topmost down to the Regional Directors of the 17 regions of the country will participate in the three-day gathering.

Ramos said the semi-annual event was originally set last December 10 to 13, but was re-scheduled due to Typhoon Pablo.