The operations of the DSWD as the relief and welfare arm of the government started in 1951 when the Department, formerly known as the Social Welfare Commission (SWC), and the President's Action Committee on Social Amelioration (PACSA) merged into the Social Welfare Administration (SWA) and started an integrated public welfare program.
To respond to the needs of the public, the SWA maintained a small stockroom of supplies at its office in Legarda, Manila. In 1960, recognizing the rising demand for relief goods, the Administration occupied another structure in Welfareville, Mandaluyong to be able to store more supplies.
In 1972, after observing the problems in logistics during the relief operations for the people affected by the devastating flood that hit the Central and Northern Luzon Regions and the Greater Manila area, the management and officers of the Villamor Air Base Command (VAB Command) offered their facility to be used as warehouse to easily facilitate the airlifting of the relief goods. Two areas were provided to SWA, the Imelda Relief Operation Center (IROC) located in the Kalayaan Area, and the Villamor Airbase Relief Operation Center (VABROC) located at the far end of the hangar. Later on, the VAB Command required the use of the Kalayaan area; hence the two small warehouses were merged into one at the hangar area until the early part of the year 1990 when the Department was already renamed as the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD).
In 1991, the government allowed the use of the Logistics Command (LogCom) at the General Headquarters in Camp Aguinaldo after the two consecutive great disasters - the 1990 Luzon earthquake and the cataclysmic eruption of Mt. Pinatubo in 1991, to sufficiently respond to the needs of the affected populace.
With the signing of the Bases Conversion and Development Act (BCDA) in 1992, the Department decided to build a warehouse at the far end of the Nayon ng Kabataan Orphanage area after being requested to move out of the hangar.
In 1998, as stated in Executive Order No. 15, dated August 20, 1998, the role of the DSWD included the provision of augmentation resources to partners in social welfare and development. In line with this, the DSWD, in 1999, created the Resource Operations Center (ROC), formerly known as VABROC, which served as a warehouse for limited supply of Ready to Eat Food (RTEF) and other relief supplies prepositioned for national calamities and other similar situations; and a venue for stripping and opening container vans of goods donated to DSWD of NGOs coursed through the Department, as well as repacking of such goods whenever necessary. The DSWD Field Offices shall maintain their own Regional Operations Center (ROC) to ensure timely response to requests for augmentation.
In 2003, through the issuance of Administrative Order No. 51, the VABROC was officially renamed as the National Resource Operations Center (NROC). The management and supervision of NROC were transferred from DSWD-National Capital Region (NCR) to the Administrative Service (AS) of the Department, and the overall supervision and disposition of goods thereat was lodged with the Office of the Undersecretary for Operations and Programs Group (OPG) through the National Operations Office of the Protective Service Bureau (PSB).
During this time, NROC has only one main warehouse with a floor area of 600 square meters, was being managed by only twelve personnel, and was required to have a stockpile of only five thousand (5,000) FFPs at any given day during peak of the rainy or typhoon months, particularly May to October, and a stockpile of three thousand (3,000) FFPs for November to April.
In 2009, six warehouses in NROC, now located in Pasay City, was erected with the help of the Manila Economic and Cultural Office of Taipei and the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office. After seeing the perennial problem on warehousing, the Department scouted for donors and sponsors which resulted to the mini-industrial park style warehouse at the corner of Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA) and Chapel Road. These warehouses were first used during the operation for Typhoon Ondoy and Typhoon Pepeng which hit most of Luzon in the last quarter of 2009.
In 2012, the then Donation Facilitation Unit under the Administrative Service, which was in charge of facilitating, processing, and managing donations, was merged with NROC and was named the Warehouse Management and Donation Facilitation Division (WMDFD). In 2013, the WMDFD and the Disaster Operations Division of PSB were combined and became one office named Disaster Risk Reduction and Response Operations Office (DRRROO) lodged in the Operations and Program Group (OPG).
In 2015, the WMDFD was detached from DRRROO and was renamed as National Resource Operations Office (NROO) and was transferred to the Office of the Assistant Secretary for General Administration and Support Services Group (OAS-GASSG). In 2018, through the issuance of the Administrative Order No. 2, “Strengthening of the DSWD Central Office”, the NROO was renamed the National Resource Logistics and Management Service (NRLMS) and was transferred to the Disaster Management Group (DMG).
From its humble beginnings as a small stockroom of supplies, NROC has grown to be the national facility of the government for disaster response, particularly the production of family food packs (FFPs).
NROC developed into a facility with a total land area of 20,349 square meters and is composed of eight warehouses – warehouses A, B, C, D, E, F, G, and H, is managed by the National Resource and Logistics Management Service (formerly National Resource Operations Office), and has the capacity to store almost two hundred thousand (200,000) FFPs and produce at least 50,000 to 100,000 FFPs in a twenty-four-hour operation.
With the support of the United Nations World Food Programme (UN-WFP), the Mechanized Production System was installed at Warehouses D and E in 2015. The UN-WFP also completed the installation of racking system at Warehouses A, B, E and G which can store up to 948 pallets.
Moreover, NROC is now a training facility for volunteers in disaster response. The NRLMS trains volunteers on the overall operations of the NROC and Disaster Response Centers (DRCs) to create a pool of readily available workforce during disaster operations.