TAGBILARAN BOHOL, November 7, (PIA) –Since 2009 until now, the government’s flagship social assistance program has enhanced Bohol economy with an outpouring of the P1.8 billion cash grants and still an undetermined amount of social development infrastructure packed in its Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program (4Ps).
Implemented by the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD), 4Ps is a human development investment program that banks on health and education of kids 0-18 years from poor families, using different convergence strategies in providing means for their survival then off to self-sufficiency, explains Phoebe Jen Indino, DSWD 4Ps Information Officer.
First implemented as pilot in a few barangays with about a hundred families in Danao in 2009, 4Ps now spreads to 58, 899 households all over Bohol given conditional cash transfer (CCT) grants to help poor families who also abide by the set conditions.
These conditions include keeping school kids attendance to 85%, getting pregnant women to health centers for the regular pre-natal services and kids for their deworming and nutrition monitoring, as well as for member beneficiaries to attend Family Development Sessions.
Anything short of that, families have to miss the P500 for every high school student and P300 for every elementary kid assistance as well as P500 medical aid which are paid out once in every two months, DSWD said.
In 2014 until October alone, the DSWD has flooded some P308 million in Bohol in cash grants, a figure that could bloat with the validation of additional beneficiaries and the upcoming enrolment for the modified CCT, hints Indino, who also handles communications packaging for the program in Cebu, Negros Oriental and Siquijor, where 4Ps also operate.
Beyond the CCT, which has perked up local economies since its releases, the DSWD supports its with Sustainable livelihood Programs (SLP) which grants more funds for microenterprise development in both loan and grant forms, adds Sharmane Ronquillo at the recent Kapihan sa PIA.
For families needing seed fund as capitals, the DSWD has Self Employment Assistance-Kaunlaran which grants loans of up to P20,000.00 and complementary technical assistance on enterprise development, she said.
For those who need some more, DSWD also puts in starter kit assistance and capacity building of beneficiaries as well as help in the acquisition of machineries and equipment, to those who intend to cross over the poverty thresholds to self-sufficiency.
And as if these are not enough, the DSWD again puts up a new Kapit-bisig Laban sa Kahirapan, Comprehensive Integrated Development of Social Services packed in its National Community Driven Development Program (KC-NCDDP), butts in Alberto Suello, Sub Regional Program Coordinator.
KC NCDDP is another funded poverty alleviation program as a scaled up operations of community-driven development (CDD), strategy that allows communities empowered to achieve improved access to services and to participate in more inclusive local planning, budgeting, and implementation.
Here, communities identify their priority projects, unlike then when projects which get erected may soon turn out to be useless.
“It gets a better chance of sustainability as the communities would feel they now own the project,” DSWD said. (RAC/PIABohol)
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