Pantawid Pamilya reaches out to 5T in Bantayan Island
Cebu, March 16 (PIA) -- Armed with an objective to alleviate poverty through the government’s conditional cash transfer program popularly known as Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program, DSWD-7 personnel set forth for Bantayan Island in March 2011 to register more than five thousand households identified as poorest of the poor from the 25 barangays of Bantayan Island.
Known to be a tropical paradise in Asia with fine white sands and crystal clear blue waters, this small haven of unsaturated beauty is indeed a come-on to most tourists.
Little do they know of the poverty that dwells, in the lives of these fisher folks or of the intergenerational poverty in the smaller islands such as the likes of Barangay Lipayran, Luyong Baybay or Doong that composes the Municipality of Bantayan .
Fishing, seaweed farming and fish drying are the only sources of livelihood these simple folks has come to know as handed down from generation to generation until Pantawid Pamilya came, they would never have known that the next generation have a chance for a better future through education, improvement in health and nutrition.
DSWD’s Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program “Pantawid Pamilya” is a poverty alleviation strategy aims to end the inter-generation cycle of poverty among poor households by investing on human capital through education and health.
It provides conditional cash grants to poor household with children 0-14 year old. Each household would receive P500 as health and nutrition grant and P300 for the education of the children every month.
A household with three qualified children can receive up to P1,400 monthly or P15,000 annually as long as the beneficiaries comply with their co-responsibilities that included the following: first, pregnant women must get pre-and post-natal care and be attended during childbirth by skilled health personnel.
Second, parent/guardians must attend responsible parenthood sessions, mothers’ classes and parent effectiveness seminars.
Third, children 0-5 years old must receive regular preventive health check-ups and vaccines.
Fourth, children aged 3-5 years old must attend day care or pre-school classes at least 85% of the time.
Fifth, children 6-14 years old must enroll in elementary or high school and attend at least 85% of the time, and sixth, children 6-14 years old must receive de-worming pills twice a year.
With the Department of Health’s RNheals Nurses, representative from the Office of Mayor Ian Escario, Ms. Dolly Derecho, MSWDO of Bantayan Island and the Department of Social Welfare & Development’s (DSWD) Pantawid Pamilya set forth to introduce the program to these households and how improvement of health and education for their children and themselves to improve their standard of living.
As Erwin Ganar, a father of three children ages 5, 4 and 3 of Barangay Lipayran, Bantayan Island said “sa kalayo sa among isla wala ko ka-eskwela apan dili na man pareha ang panahon, lisod kaayo kung ang usa ka bata walay grado ug magdako nga ignorante apan kabalo gyud ko nga pina-agi aning programaha matagad na gyud among panginahanglan diri sa isla ug na-a nay dako nga porsento akong mga anaka makatiwas ug eskwela” (considering the distance of our island barangay I was not able to go to school but times now are different, it is very difficult for one to grow up illiterate and ignorant but I know through this program the government would give attention to our needs here in the island and a very big percentage that my children can finish school).
The poor of Bantayan Island may not be overnight millionaires but their children and their children’s children will definitely be literate with knowledge of their rights, empowered to seek what is due to them and find better means of livelihood other than the one they grew up in.
Eventually practices such as dynamite and cyanide fishing would be unheard of making it a better and safer future, in which one can truly be proud of to showcase to the world. (PIA-7/Minerva BC Newman & reports from DSWD-7/Aileen Lariba)