The National Tobacco Administration, through the NTA Vigan Branch Office, with the help of Trans-Manila Inc. and volunteers, conducted relief operations for typhoon Maring victims in Barangay Butir in Sta. Maria, Ilocos Sur on October 20.
NTA Vigan, turned over much-needed bottles of drinking water, food packs, including rice and assorted groceries, blankets, and hygiene kits to 125 households from the three sitios of the barangay. The volunteer staff, headed by NTA Vigan Branch Manager Minerva P. Mizal, helped in the distribution, in coordination with Butir Barangay Chairman Arnel Peralta.
Butir is one of the hardest hit barangays during the onslaught of typhoon Maring on October 12, causing billions of pesos of damages in properties, infrastructures, and agricultural crops in Ilocos Sur and other parts of Luzon.
According to Mizal, the Branch Office initiated the fund drive from their own staff, then donations from various groups, institutions and individuals poured in after an information of the drive was posted in FB.
Administrator/CEO Robert Victor G. Seares Jr. has donated a month’s worth of his salary to the victims of Typhoon Maring. He said during the orientation of Job Order hirees on October 22 that he has instructed the Finance Department to send his November salary to the victims in Ilocos through the Branch Offices in areas affected by the typhoon.
Other individuals who gave their donations were NTA managers, retirees from Vigan Branch, the head of a local leaf buying firm, and some generous friends. TMI donated cash for the fund drive and provided the trucks for the loading of the relief packs to the distribution area.
Mizal shared: “We are very thankful to our donors, showing the true bayanihan spirit, and we are very happy to help and deliver the ayuda to the residents who were affected by the typhoon.”
[Photos: Immanouel A. Rafanan / NTA Vigan]