Social Welfare Secretary Dinky Soliman: The color of her commitment

Manila, Philippines - The Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) is one of the few government agencies that has successfully implemented pro-poor programs that transcend politics and changes in the country’s leadership.

According to Secretary Corazon “Dinky” Soliman, who is back at the helm of the DSWD after a five-year hiatus, the agency has been shielded from politics because it chooses to implement effective projects even if they are identified with the previous administrations.

“The DSWD has been fortunate that the secretaries that have come and gone have really built on the good programs in the DSWD, in other words this is one department that didn’t completely take away the programs because there is a new secretary. The practice is to build on what has worked. If it works it has to be continued,” Soliman tells STARweek.

Soliman mentions in particular the DSWD’s Kapit-Bisig Laban sa Kahirapan-Comprehensive and Integrated Delivery of Social Services (KALAHI-CIDSS) and the Self-Employment Assistance-Kaunlaran (SEA-K), the programs she started when she was DSWD secretary under the Arroyo administration.

DSWD Secretary Dinky Soliman visits survivors of a Dec. 26 fire in Muntinlupa with DSWD NCR staff.

Another important project of the DSWD is the conditional cash transfer (CCT) program or the Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program (4Ps) initiated by the previous administration.

For the last four years, the DSWD, which celebrated its 60th year anniversary last January, has received the highest approval and satisfaction ratings and was named the least corrupt of all government agencies.

Soliman also garnered the highest approval rating of 65 percent and the lowest disapproval rating of seven percent among 12 Cabinet members rated in the 4th quarter 2010 Pulse Asia survey.

Soliman was first appointed DSWD secretary by former President and now Pampanga Rep. Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo in 2001. She quit her post in 2005 when she joined a group of Cabinet officials who called for the resignation of Arroyo at the height of the “Hello, Garci” election fraud scandal.

Soliman says she is very happy to return to work in what she describes as one of the “most committed bureaucracies.”

Soliman presents President Aquino with a signed memorandum of the 4Ps. Willy PErez/STAR

One of the reforms she announced during the first few weeks of the new administration was the convergence of three DSWD programs – the 4Ps, KALAHI-CIDSS, and the SEA-K – aimed at enhancing the impact on poverty reduction beyond what each project can accomplish on its own.

A committed social worker, Soliman was born on Jan. 27, 1953 in San Miguel, Tarlac. She is married to lawyer Hector Soliman with whom she has two children, Sandino and Marikit. She was exposed to social work at an early age because both her parents were very active in community affairs in their province.

When she was in high school at the College of the Holy Spirit in Tarlac, Soliman joined the Student Catholic Action and worked with rural farmers.

She graduated with a degree in Social Work from the University of the Philippines-Diliman in 1973.

“I took up Political Science in the first two years…I think I was more action oriented that’s why I shifted to the College of Social Work and Community Development and there I got exposed to community organizing,” she says.

Joins him in a relief operation in Isabela

Soliman finished her master’s degree in Public Administration at the Kennedy School of Government in Harvard University in 1998. She spent 27 years working with various non-government organizations before joining the Cabinet in 2001.

Despite her very demanding job, Soliman finds time for her family, especially for her only grandchild Tala, daughter of Sandino, who is a little over a year old.

“I really try to protect my Sundays to the best that I can…I try to keep Sunday or Saturday afternoon free,” Soliman says, adding that her family has been very supportive of her job as she and her husband engaged their children in their work when they were still young.

“We bring them to the communities where we work,” Soliman says. “Their lifestyle and values are not different from ours, both of them are now involved in development work.”

She reads books or goes ballroom dancing with her husband during her free time, but “when I’m in the house I sleep, because I lack sleep,” she adds.

Soliman with former ambassador to Germany Delia Albert and Quezon City vice mayor Joy Belmonte at Yes Pinoy’s Para-Paaralan launch Joven Cagande/STAR

Soliman is famous for the streak of color in her hair, which she changes every so often.

“First of all, whenever I feel down or frustrated or depressed, one of the things that I change is my hair, or I do something with myself. One time when I felt so down, I was walking inside a mall when I saw a piercing shop, I got my ears pierced for the second time,” Soliman says.

“My husband and I were down and depressed about the situation of the country in 2000 and I wanted to do something different. I saw these small colored hair streaks which lifted my spirits up, and I just felt it might also lift the spirits of other people, so I started using it and it did lift people’s spirit. Until the situation changes I’ll keep it,” Soliman says.

The hair streak was blue when she was appointed DSWD secretary in 2001. Blue, according to her, symbolizes peace.

“I kept it because in a way it reminded me of why I am in government. I think it was blue because I accepted the challenge of being in government because of transparency. I wanted change and it will remind me of my roots which is NGO, alternative and non-traditional. I must credit my former boss GMA for allowing me to be who I am,” she says.

Gerry Roxas Foundation chair Judy Araneta Roxas welcomes Soliman to the Women Barangay Justice Advocates congress Boy Santos/STAR

“It’s a very personal manifestation of what I believe in. The other thing is to tell myself and to communicate to the rest of the world that I’m not taking myself too seriously. I can laugh at myself and be a little quirky,” Soliman says.

Even in international meetings she does not remove her colored hair.

“In my first tour of duty, I was going to a ministerial meeting in Europe…the immigration people were waiting for us…when I presented my diplomatic passport to the immigration officer he looked at the passport, looked at me, then looked at the passport again, as if he was asking ‘are you sure you are the minister,’” Soliman laughs.

During the campaign for the May 2010 elections, Soliman’s streak was yellow in support of President Aquino. Yellow was the campaign color of the President, the same color his mother, the late former President Corazon Aquino, used during the 1986 snap election campaign.

The DSWD focused last year on improving the government’s poverty alleviation programs, but continues to be criticized for its controversial P21-billion CCT program.

The agency received its biggest budget in history this year at P34.2 billion, or a 123 percent increase from its 2010 budget. The bulk of the DSWD budget has been earmarked for the 4Ps.

Soliman in yellow – and yellow hair streak – with campaign volunteers

Soliman says the DSWD was able to achieve its target of one million beneficiaries last year for the 4Ps. This year, they are looking at benefiting some 1.3 million more poor households nationwide.

“Now we’re adding 325,000 for the first quarter of the year and we started the pay out last month,” Soliman says.

The DSWD chief adds, while the program is expanding to over 200 areas nationwide, it has already introduced sustainable livelihood to the set 1 and 2 beneficiaries of 4Ps.

“Because in 2012 and 2013 they will graduate from the five year-contract of 4Ps, we teach them sustainable livelihood interventions to practice, to learn or stabilize either through a livelihood program or employment… For employment the steps that are being done is assessing their skills what they want to do, what they want to learn. We’re working with TESDA (Technology Education and Skills Development Authority),” she says.

Soliman inaugurates a daycare center in Naga

“We’re also working with the economic managers, particularly the Department of Trade and Industry, so that we can guarantee them employment. One thing is to ask the contractors of the Department of Public Works and Highways to employ 20 percent not only from locals but from the beneficiaries of the 4Ps. We also ensure through community-driven development that the communities they live in have the necessary infrastructure, such as daycare centers.”

Soliman says reducing poverty incidence in the country requires the efforts of all government and non-government institutions as well as local government units (LGUs).

She aims to increase the capacity of the DSWD to provide technical assistance and services to LGUs, peoples’ organizations and NGOs so that the basic social services that people need can be met at the local level.

She meets Gov. Magudadatu and Sec. Kadir Pombaen in Maguindanao

“My dream, my vision is for persons with disabilities to have community centers in municipalities that they can work in, that there are vibrant places where senior citizens can go and enjoy their lives, that there are more playgrounds for children everywhere, less children in the streets and in the rehabilitation centers where we put children in conflict with the law. All of that can happen if the LGUs will be very rigorous in attending to these situations,” Soliman says, adding that if the DSWD services can also be provided at the local level, “the capacity of the department to move 4.6 million families from the vulnerability of where they are now to the path of the development would be attainable.”

The secretary spends time with her family at the Bencab Museum in Baguio