Yearender: DSWD's Pantawid reaches target of 2.3 M beneficiaries

MANILA, Philippines - The Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) has assisted not only the needy and poor residents in the country but also thousands of indigent senior citizens nationwide.

The severe weather disturbances that struck the country this year also kept the government social workers busy in extending relief assistance as well as counseling to thousands of victims.

The DSWD has reached its target of 2.3 million beneficiaries of the government’s Pantawid Pamilya Pilipino Program (4Ps) in 2011.

Data from the DSWD showed that as of Dec. 23, there are 2,302,745 registered Pantawid Pamilya beneficiaries.

The DSWD will receive a budget of P48.9 billion for 2012, a bulk of this will go to the 4Ps.

The 4Ps is a poverty reduction and social development program initiated by the Arroyo administration. It provides conditional cash grants to the “poorest of the poor” households to improve their health, nutrition and education, particularly of children aged 0-14 years.

The program provides beneficiaries cash grants of P500 a month for health and nutrition expenses and P300 a month per child for educational expenses. A household with three qualified children could get P1,400 monthly.

Meanwhile, the DSWD has also provided monthly cash grants to over 120,000 poor elderly people this year.

As of Dec. 16, a total of 122,552 out of the 138,960 target poor senior citizens nationwide have received their cash grants amounting to P500 a month.

For 2011, the Aquino administration has allocated P833,760,000 for the Social Pension for Indigent Senior Citizens program.

The DSWD said payout of the stipend for the third and fourth quarter of 2011 is ongoing in all regions.

The social pension program is provided under Republic Act 9994, also known as the Expanded Senior Citizens Act (ESCA) of 2010.

Under the law, the target beneficiaries are indigent older persons who are frail, sick, disabled, not receiving any pension or have no permanent source of income, or regular support from families or relatives.

The DSWD has likewise provided livelihood assistance to 43,994 families under its Self-Employment Assistance Kaunlaran project (SEA-K).

The agency has disbursed P309,793.486 to fund 1,750 SEA-K projects.

The SEA-K program enables families to establish and manage their own micro-enterprises through an entrepreneurial skills training program that includes the provision of non-collateral and interest-free loan amounting to P10,000 per family-beneficiary as seed capital. 

The department likewise allocated P5.93 billion this year for its Kapit-Bisig Laban sa Kahirapan-Comprehensive and Integrated Delivery of Social Services (KALAHI-CIDSS), benefiting approximately 1,345,767 households in 6,101 barangays.

The KALAHI-CIDSS is a community-driven development project of the DSWD which aims to empower communities through participation in local governance and involvement in the implementation of poverty reduction activities.

Launched in 2003, the project covered a total of 4,583 barangays in 200 municipalities of the poorest provinces in the country. To date, KALAHI-CIDSS has funded 5,876 community sub-projects with a total cost of P5.93 billion.

Priority community projects identified by the beneficiaries are water systems, school buildings, day care centers, barangay health stations, electrification system and access roads, among others.

KALAHI-CIDSS expanded its coverage to reach up to 50 percent of the poorest municipalities in targeted provinces, utilizing additional financing of the World Bank and from the United States} Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC). A total of 348 municipalities will be covered by the expansion.