By Ali Macabalang
COTABATO CITY – Health workers and other frontline fighters against the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) in the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao are being supplied with vitamin C-rich fresh calamansi to enhance body resistance in combating the pandemic disease, BARMM spokesman Naguib Sinarimbo said.
Volunteer workers repacking 91 bags of fresh citrus (calamansi) donated by regional Public Works Minister Eduard Guerra on Sunday for distribution to frontliners in the fight against COVID-19. (BARMM photo / via Ali Macabalang / MANILA BULLETIN)
“This is our substitute for commercial vitamin C to boost the immunity of our constituents, particularly our frontliners,” Sinarimbo said on Sunday, referring to calamansi.
He said 91 sacks of calamansi were donated earlier that day by BARMM’s Public Works Minister Eduard Guerra straight from his family’s tropical fruits farm.
Volunteer workers of the BARMM’s Rapid Emergency Action on Disaster Incidence (READI) program included the fresh citrus with relief food packages to be distributed to frontline workers and in villages believed highly vulnerable to COVID-19.
Sinarimbo, who is concurrent Minister of Interior and Local Government, underscored the value of the donation, and referred to Guerra as “Kumander Kalamansi” in a Facebook post.
Market places in Maguindanao, Lanao del Sur, Basilan, Sulu, Tawi-Tawi provinces, the cities of Cotabato, Marawi and Lamitang, and 63 villages in North Cotabato constituting the BARMM territory have run out of commercial vitamin C products alongside ethyl alcohol and face masks in the advent of the viral pandemic, according to traders.
Scarce calamansi supply, which used to be sold at P20 per kilo, is now priced between P1 and P5 apiece in market places nowadays, buyers said.