Food is now the focus of Fr. Bermejo’s mission of mercy to sugarcane plantation workers

As the community quarantine period continues being extended, more people are starving, to the point that seemingly people’s main concern now here has shifted from the coronavirus infection to the most basic: food supply acquisition, in order to survive.”

Father Dandi Bermejo

Father Donardo “Dandi” Bermejo, founding director of the Works of Charity Center and the St. Joseph the Worker Clinic for the sugarcane plantation workers in the Occidental Negros region of the Philippines, has been distributing food to people in need during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Fr. Bermejo spent nine years ministering in the Jefferson City diocese.

With support from the diocesan Mission Office, his Catholic outreach ministry serves some of the poorest people in his homeland.

His region of the Philippines was placed under Enhanced Community Quarantine (ECQ) on March 30.

The sugarcane plantation workers could not work and were obliged to stay at home during the ECQ.

“They barely survive with their very low income from working in the sugarcane field,” Fr. Bermejo stated. “And still worse, they will lose that very meager pay, their only source of subsistence, these coming days.”

Fr. Bermejo and the staff of the Mercy Center in Barangay Purisima, Manapla, spent a week before quarantine preparing food packages for the people.

The Works of Mercy Center is allowed to stay open during the quarantine, distributing more than 1,000 packages of rice in the first week alone. 

Fr. Bermejo’s St. Joseph Charity Clinic has also remained open for emergencies during the quarantine.

As the two-week quarantine continues to be extended, the Works of Mercy Center staff has headed out into local villages to distribute more food.

Their fourth wave of rice distribution took place during the third week of April.

“As the community quarantine period continues being extended, more people are starving, to the point that seemingly people’s main concern now here has shifted from the coronavirus infection to the most basic: food supply acquisition, in order to survive,” said Fr. Bermejo.

He said he begins distribution with a simple prayer.

“Let us pray for one another, for all those working in the frontlines sacrificing their lives for us, for the healing of those infected with coronavirus, and for the complete defeat of the coronavirus pandemic the soonest possible time on the face of the earth,” said Fr. Bermejo.

“I encourage everyone to double or triple our prayers for this very urgent and important intention — for with God nothing is impossible,” he stated.

To learn more about Fr. Bermejo’s work, follow him on Facebook at Father Dandi’s Connections.

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