300 marginalized Cotabato City residents receive cash-for-work payouts

COTABATO CITY — Around 300 marginalized residents in three barangays in Cotabato City each received P3,610 as cash-for-work grant from two government agencies helping address poverty and underdevelopment in far-flung areas.

The Tulong Panghanapbuhay sa Ating Disadvantaged, Displaced Workers Program (TUPAD) payouts were released to the 300 residents of Barangays Tamontaka Mother, Rosary Heights 7 and Kalanganan 2 in Cotabato City over the weekend, local executives and Bangsamoro regional officials said on Tuesday.  

The Ministry of Labor and Employment-Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao also stated in a separate report on Tuesday that MoLE-BARMM’s senior programs consultant, Lito Coloso, and representatives of Joel Gonzales, who is regional director of the Department of Labor and Employment-12 (DOLE-12), facilitated the distribution of the cash grants to the 300 residents of the three barangays.

The national government’s TUPAD program, being implemented jointly by MoLE-BARMM and DOLE-12 in Bangsamoro barangays in Central Mindanao, is a community-based poverty-alleviation thrust meant to somehow help bail out laborers and farmers from hardships due to lack of income as a result of conflicts, calamities and limited employment.

Beneficiaries of the TUPAD program had engaged in government projects and other peace and development activities in their barangays in exchange for “cash-for-work” incentives.

The DOLE-12 and the provincial government of Cotabato had facilitated payouts just two weeks ago for more than 5,000 TUPAD project beneficiaries in different towns in the province.