President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. on Tuesday called on various government agencies to keep their Christmas celebrations simple this year in solidarity with victims of the recent tropical cyclones.
“Alinsunod sa panawagan ng ating Pangulo, hinihikayat namin ang lahat ng ahensya ng pamahalaan na iwasan ang mga marangyang pagdiriwang ngayong Pasko,” Executive Secretary Lucas Bersamin said in a statement.
(In accordance with the call of the President, we are urging all government agencies to avoid lavish celebrations this Christmas.)
Bersamin said an official order “need no longer be issued because we believe in the kindness of our fellow government workers, whom we fully trust can unilaterally adopt austerity in their celebrations.”
“This call is in solidarity with the millions of our countrymen who continue to grieve over lives, homes and livelihoods lost during the six typhoons that pummeled us in a span of less than a month,” Bersamin said.
The Palace official also said government offices are also urged to donate whatever savings they realize from scaled-down holiday celebrations to calamity-hit communities.
“On the part of the government, we will make sure that the Christmas spirit will be felt early by all the affected areas in the form of relief goods and assistance, of infrastructure rebuilt, and of livelihoods restored,” he said.
Six cyclones, some of them reaching super typhoon category, battered many areas in Luzon and the Visayas in recent weeks, causing lost of lives and massive destruction in properties.
In its 8 a.m. situational report on Monday, the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council (NDRRMC) said the last three of the cyclones — Nika, Ofel and Pepito — have displaced 685,071 individuals and resulted in P469.8 million damage to infrastructure and P8.6 million damage to agriculture. —KBK, GMA Integrated News
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