The Department of Social Welfare and Development ensures all delivery of rice and family food packs to affected families in Eastern Samar for relief distribution today.

Nine wing vans and five military trucks containing 5000 family food packs (ffp) for Borongan, 1440 ffp for Llorente, 960 ffp for Quinapondan, 400 sacks of 50kg rice to Arteche, 350 rice sacks for Dolores, 350 for Jipapad, 400 sacks for Oras, San Julian, San Policarpo and Sulat respectively left the Tacloban Hub on December 8 for Eastern Samar distribution today.

Two trucks bound for Western Samar containing 100 sacks of 50kg rice for Calbiga, 100 sacks for Hinabangan, 100 sacks for Motiong, 100 sacks for Paranas, 100 sacks for San Sebastian and 200 sacks for Jiabong are also set for distribution in the affected municipalities.

As early as Monday, a day after typhoon Ruby made landfall in Dolores, Eastern Samar, DSWD Field Office Eight Regional Director, Nestor B. Ramos and Assistant Regional Director for Operations, Restituto B. Macuto proceeded to Northern Samar and Eastern Samar, to personally supervise the relief and disaster operations in the area.

As of December 9, 2014, DSWD Field Office Eight has released food commodities of 14, 375 sacks of 50kg rice, 17, 500 (tins) canned goods, 3, 536 packs of complete family food packs, and 5, 347 rice packs of 6kg. to the provinces of Leyte, Samar, Eastern Samar, and Northern Samar with 54 municipalities and city.

Moreover, FO8 has already released 16, 668 sacks of 50 kg. of rice, 33, 565 packs of complete family food packs, 232 boxes of canned goods, 47 boxes of coffee and 30 sacks of bottled water on top of its prepositioned goods as part of the augmentation support for relief distribution in 55 municipalities in the provinces of Leyte, Southern Leyte, Biliran, Western Samar, Northern Samar and Eastern Samar.

DSWD Eight has also dispatched its staff to augment the disaster operations in Northern and Eastern Samar, two of the provinces badly hit by Typhoon Ruby in Eastern Visayas.

Emergency purchase of rice from the National Food Authority has already been undertaken to provide more augmentation of relief goods to the provinces of Eastern and Northern Samar.

To date, Typhoon Ruby has left 225,431 affected families with 1,039,370 affected individuals with 162, 285 displaced families or 769, 053 individuals within 1, 943 evacuation sites across Eastern Visayas within six provinces.