“A COUNTRY WITHIN A COUNTRY...Ilonggos have a strong sense of community and are extremely empowered...”

Employees donated their salaries, stores gave food and groceries, businessesmen bought millions-worth of test kits, chem students made ethyl alcohol for hospitals... [1/7]

Universities, labs, and alumni groups worked to have an RITM- accredited testing center opened in the city, a transport company deployed 30 buses for use by health workers, a maritime school offered its training ship which was turned into a floating hotel for frontliners [2/7]

The city college was transformed into a dormitory for hospital workers and generous citizens stocked it with donated mattresses, pillows, beddings, groceries, toiletries, kitchen equipment, and even Wi-Fi modems [3/7]

Neighborhood mommies and titas volunteered to cook at the 240 community kitchens which feed residents of 180 barangays, bakeries and flour sellers joined with the city government to provide free pan de sal daily to all the city’s villages [4/7]

Stranded students in dormitories volunteered to make face shields, fashion designers working with the city’s seamstresses produced PPEs for the frontliners working in hospital within Iloilo City as well as in Iloilo Province [5/7]

A cash-for-work program for 20,000 people who lost jobs will get P2500 for ten days of work, police and tanods man the checkpoitnts, firefighters disinfect the city streets nightly, the Mayor holds regular press conferences, City Hall releases detailed reports on donations [6/7]

“They came from all walks of life, and it didn’t matter how much money they could spare. They only had one thing in mind: help the city government lessen the impact of community quarantine amid the COVID-19 pandemic, even without national government support.”

[7/7]

READ: How the Ilonggos are working closely with the Iloilo City Government to confront the COVID-19 pandemic. https://newsinfo.inquirer.net/1254315/ilonggos-turn-inward-to-get-themselves-through-quarantine