SUBIC BAY FREEPORT — More than P70,000 worth of donations were sent in by workers and companies in the Subic Bay Freeport to help ease the problems of more than 6,000 residents of Orion, Bataan who lost their homes to a massive fire that hit a community of informal settlers late last month.

Employees of the Subic Bay Metropolitan Authority (SBMA) and several business locators in the Freeport came up with more than 25 boxes of assorted supplies after the agency mounted a donation drive early this month.

SBMA Public Relations Department manager Armie Llamas, who formally turned over the donations last week, said the contributions consisted of sleeping mats, water pails, plates and drinking cups, various toiletry items, blankets, pillows, canned goods, and used clothes.

These were turned over to Orion, Bataan Mayor Antonio Raymundo, Jr., the SBMA manager said.

Prior to this, the SBMA’s radio station also asked its listeners to give voluntary contributions in the aftermath of the Orion fire and collected 5 cavans of rice, 6 boxes of canned goods, 4 boxes of noodles, 3 boxes of bread and biscuits, 2 boxes of assorted packed food, 3 boxes of hygiene products, assorted kitchen and house ware, and beddings and mattresses.

89.5-FM Subic Bay Radio acting manager Menandro Magcale said the station likewise received some 100 pairs of shoes and slippers, as well as a dozen huge plastic bags of used clothes, from donors the Subic Bay Freeport and Olongapo City.

The radio station staff, along with volunteer students from Aura Collegein the Freeport, delivered the donations on Feb. 8 to social welfare workers at the main evacuation center in the Bataan School of Fisheries in Orion.

SBMA Chairman Wilma T. Eisma, meanwhile, lauded the SBMA employees, business locators and other stakeholders in the Subic community for showing concern for other people who are in need.

“Your gesture of love and kindness for others, especially our neighbors in Bataan, best exemplifies the culture of benevolence and malasakit that we are cultivating in this community,” Eisma added.

Reports said that more than 6,000 individuals fled to temporary evacuation centers after the January 29 fire razed more than 600 houses at Sitio Depensa in Orion’s Barangay Capunitan.

Officials said the houses owned mostly by fishermen and informal settlers were made of light materials that easily caught fire when strong winds fanned the blaze. – HENRY EMPEÑO