Luisita farmers get livelihood assistance

MANILA, Philippines - The Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) continues to provide livelihood assistance to farm workers of Hacienda Luisita Inc., which is owned by the family of President Aquino.

Social Welfare Secretary Corazon Soliman ordered the DSWD Field Office in Central Luzon to organize an inter-agency meeting to assess the short-term plans and to address the pressing needs brought about by new developments in Hacienda Luisita.

The Supreme Court (SC) ordered last week the distribution of Hacienda Luisita lands to farmworker-beneficiaries.

“We would continue the programs that we have started to implement in the area and will further look into other appropriate social service interventions needed by the farmers to ensure that they will not go hungry and further bear the brunt of poverty while waiting for their land titles,” Soliman said in a statement.

She said the agency would continue to implement the Self-Employment Assistance-Kaunlaran (SEA-K) where families get capital assistance to finance their livelihood projects.

SEA-K has been implemented since 2005 in 11 barangays in Tarlac City and Mabilog in Concepcion, and Montrico in La Paz, that benefited some 39 SEA-K cooperatives with 1,015 members.

Soliman said the DSWD has released over P5 million as capital assistance for the cooperatives.

The DSWD’s Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program had also distributed cash grants to 703 households in Concepcion and Tarlac City for the education and nutritional needs of their children.

Soliman said more than P2.1 million had been released to the beneficiaries since 2011.

She said 50 senior citizens in Hacienda Luisita also continue to benefit from the social pension program of the agency, receiving P500 monthly subsistence.

Soliman said 1,140 farmers also benefited from the department’s cash-for-work program, while 469 children were given supplementary feeding.

She said other government agencies also continue to complement the DSWD support services for the farmers, including the Department of Labor and Employment and the City Cooperative and Enterprise Development, which provided capital assistance for the livelihood projects of the farmers.

The City Social Welfare and Development Office of Tarlac also provided financial assistance covering all the barangays in Hacienda Luisita, she added.

Soliman said DSWD social workers conduct regular home visits to the farmers to determine other services that they may need and give them access to other government agencies, if necessary.

The SC voted 8-6 to peg the just compensation for the vast sugar estate owned by the Cojuangco family on the 1989 valuation of P40,000 per hectare.

The SC ruling upheld the Court’s order on Nov. 22, 2011 to distribute close to 5,000 hectares of Hacienda Luisita to more than 6,000 beneficiaries.