By Mike U. Crismundo Butuan City – The quick response teams (QRTs) of the regional office of the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) here were activated yesterday in preparation for the Tropical Depression “Agaton.” Rescue teams of the various disaster risk reduction and management councils (DRRMCs) in the five provinces and six cities in northeastern Mindanao, or Caraga region, have also been directed by the operation center of the RDRRMC to be on “standby mode” for possible deployment. DSWD 13 Field Office Caraga region had already deployed its officials, staff and personnel of RDRRMC Operation Center to render 24/7 duty starting last Sunday. “Effective today (Jan. 1), all our quick response teams (QRTs) are also activated to render 24/7 duty to monitor the situation in various parts of the region,” DSWD 13 Regional Director MitaChuchi G. Lim told The Manila Bulletin on Monday. A total of 2,167 family food packs (FFPs) amounting to R614,994.6 are now in the DPWH Tiniwisan Warehouse, Butuan City and will be ready for immediate distribution while non-food items, such as blankets, plastic mats, mosquito nets and laminated sacks, amounting to R3.78 million, are also ready for deployment, she said. A low pressure area off the country's southeastern coast is likely to develop into a tropical depression before it makes landfall over the Caraga area between New Year's Day and Tuesday morning. The weather system was spotted 480 kilometers east of Surigao City at 8 a.m. and will be named "Agaton" once it intensifies into a storm, the first tropical cyclone to enter in the Philippine Area of Responsibility for this year, according to the state bureau. The Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration (Pagasa) said in its advisory that cloudy skies with scattered to widespread rainshowers and thunderstorms are to be expected in Mindanao’s Caraga region and Northern Mindanao.