Residents of a barangay in Mandaluyong City lined up in front of their barangay hall early Wednesday morning with containers filled with hundreds of mosquito larvae and dead mosquitoes to exchange for cash, as part of the barangay's attempt at lowering dengue cases in the area.

As of 5 pm Wednesday, 22 people took part in Barangay Addition Hills' program, with 649 mosquitoes and larvae collected. With a price tag of one peso per five mosquitoes and the same amount of five larvae, a total of P130 was dispersed by barangays to residents.

This is the first day of the mosquito and larvae collection in the barangay. An official said this will continue until they have funds or if the city health office says dengue cases declined.

Barangay Addition Hills is the most populated barangay in Mandaluyong, with 170,000 residents.

Miguel Labag, 64, showed his container filled with mosquito larvae.

“I collected these from the stagnant water in plants around my area,” he explained. "I received nine pesos for the 45 larvae I found."

The program, initially scheduled Friday, February 21, began early as a response to the various reactions received by the barangay online.

The Department of Health recently said it is concerned over the rise in dengue cases in nine local government units , including Quezon City, which has declared an outbreak. In Quezon City, there were 11 deaths, nine of these minors.

Addition Hills Barangay Captain Carlito Cernal said: ''we started the program early to see whether or not it would be effective in lowering the number of dengue cases in our area.”

The larvae collected by the residents pass through a strainer to separate the young mosquitoes from the water they swam in. Meanwhile, the mosquitoes are placed inside a sealed aquarium with UV light inside.

Barangay health workers said it recorded 44 dengue cases from January 1 to February 18, two of which died.

Barangay health workers used a black water-filled container with a stick of wood provided by the Mandaluyong City Health Office kept outside homes to serve as breeding grounds for mosquitoes.

Once a week, barangay health workers will collect the larvae growing in the black containers and sprinkle them with larvicide.

Barangay health worker Didit Orombaba gave the greatest number of mosquito larvae in the first two hours of the program amounting to 150 pieces, in exchange for P30, which she collected from the ovitrapping containers in her block

“The larvae I bought were harvested from the ovitrapping containers we put up in our puroks,” Orombaba explained.

“It is only an alternative solution to help lower the dengue cases. Once the City Health Office announces the lowering of dengue cases, then we will stop the project,” according to Cernal.

Cernal said the residents may go to the barangay hall to trade mosquitoes and larvae they found for money.

“There is not a limit in the number of times they can come back. As long as they are adults and there’s still budget left, they can keep coming back,” Cernal said.

In a radio interview, Assistant Health Secretary Albert Domingo expressed his concern that Barangay Addition Hill’s project might cause perverse incentives.

“Maybe some people would farm mosquitoes so that they’d get more money. Maybe a 'bring-me-trash' contest where the cleanest surroundings would get a prize. The stagnant water would decrease, leading to a decrease in dengue mosquitoes,”Domingo said.

Cernal said the barangay does have other projects to lower the rise of dengue cases.

“We have fogging projects, cleanup drives. We place larvicides in esteros. We have a trash-to-food program that encourages people to clean up trash from esteros in exchange for rice, canned goods, sugar, and other food items,” Cernal said. Yzabela Velez-White/DMS