Hacienda workers get food assistance

By Dolly Yasa

BACOLOD City – To ease the burden experienced by sugar farm workers due to the Enhanced Community Quarantine (ECQ) measure against the coronavirus 2019 or COVID-19, a hacienda owner distributed food assistance to more than 160 residents in their farm.

Former Isabela Councilor Patrick Miguel Montilla with his wife Anna and children Enrique Jose and Andrea personally distributed the food assistance to residents in four sitios of Hacienda San Bonifacio, Barangay Tinongan, Isabela, Wednesday afternoon.

Montilla said the aid was a concerted effort together with some councilors and Vice Mayor Renato Malabor Jr. to help the farmworkers “get by in these difficult times.”

“We came together and came up with this concerted effort to help the people in the farm to ease the burden they are experiencing now,” Montilla said.

He also said that “we really hope that this crisis will soon be over because it is causing a lot of harm to our people.”

Because of the ECQ, the movement of the residents in the area are restricted, prohibiting them from freely leaving their homes to purchase food and other necessities. Their source of income is also affected.

Montilla said “we hope to help them even in just a little way.”