By HENRY EMPEÑO | May 9, 2021

SUBIC BAY FREEPORT — The Subic Bay Metropolitan Authority (SBMA) has set up moveable community pantries to help provide relief to poor communities around the Subic Bay Freeport, as the Covid-19 pandemic continues to impact the more vulnerable sectors of the locality.

In one project organized by employees of the SBMA Law Enforcement Department (LED), their local version of the pandemic hunger-buster moved from place to place—first at the Rizal Gate of the Subic Bay Freeport on April 29, Kalaklan Gate on April 30, and Kalayaan Gate on May 7—to serve more needy people better.

The food items served at the LED pantry ranged from fresh vegetables to eggs, noodles and biscuits, to tinned meat that were initially sourced from employees and later on contributed by some locator-companies here.

LED manager Gerry Johnson said more of these movable pantries will be set up here in the future, as more assistance from Subic stakeholders continue to pour in.

In another undertaking, the SBMA Public Relations Department partnered with JCI Olongapo, Rotary Club of Subic Pearl and other volunteer groups for the “Hapag Bayanihan” community pantry that targeted remote communities in the Subic Bay Area.

PRD manager Armie Llamas Hapag Bayanihan caravan was born out of the “earnest pleas and requests from marginalized communities around the Freeport” after the successful project launch at the Subic Bay Freeport Main Gate on April 22.

On April 28, the first “Hapag Bayanihan” food caravan reached the foothills of Barangay New Cabalan in Olongapo City to provide bags of foodstuffs to members of the Ambala Ayta tribe.

The second one on May 6 brought the volunteers to the shores of Barangay Cawag at the Redondo Peninsula in subic, Zambales to deliver donated foodstuff to 130 Amianan Ayta families.

SBMA Chairman Wilma T. Eisma said on Saturday that community pantries provide much-needed relief to poor people, who are most affected by business slowdown and rising underemployment in the community due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

She added that both projects exemplified the culture of malasakit among SBMA employees and stakeholders in the Subic Bay Freeport Zone.

“In these days of the pandemic, we need to look out for each other in order to survive,” Eisma said. “We can only rise as a community when we lift others up.” ~