By: Rey Anthony Chiu
TAGBILARAN CITY , Bohol , Dec 17 (PIA) – Working as a house help away from home was unthinkable for Ana Shirley. She vowed to stay with husband Mauricio Bitancor in good and bad times.
But years later and with seven children to feed, Ana Shirley was forced to work in Manila with a heavy heart.
Mauricio was left at home to care for the kids and farm a patch of land as a peasant whose income is never enough to make both ends meet.
To eke out a living, Mauricio has to cultivate a small vegetable garden to help sustain the family’s food needs and everything else was up to their prayers that one day luck tilts their way. And it did through the Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino program!
In November 2009, the national government picked Pilar, one of Bohol ’s poorest towns as beneficiary for its conditional cash transfer (CCT) packed in the Pantawid Program.
The Bitancors live in Barangay Aurora, a remote village in Pilar town with some of its farms submerged by the Malinao Dam Irrigation Facility that somehow prevented service access to the people in the area.
The man-made lake forced residents to take the P20 boat fare to cross it to get to the town center where services are; or a P50 ‘habal-habal’ (motorcycle) ride to the poblacion, one can immediately understand why residents of the village choose to rather stay in the inter-generational vicious cycle of depravity.
Mired in poverty and compounded by contentious social irritants in irrigation issues, Mauricio a church Pastor can only think of a miracle to pick them out of their sad lot.
Not really lacking in industry the Bitancor family thought if only there is something more they could do they would have preferred to stay and face their future together.
“The 4Ps presented to us a perfect opportunity. My wife need not go far to work. The P1,400 per month cash grant is enough to get us focused on other tasks that can get us out of this sorry state” shared Mauricio at the recent Kapihan sa PIA.
According to Angelita Geril, DSWD-7 Pantawid Pamilya provincial link for Bohol and Siquijor that with certain conditions, the cash grant is given to the poorest of the poor families that the National Household Targeting System (NHTS) for Poverty Reduction survey has identified.
Geril said only those families in the survey directory like the Bitancors with kids aged between 0-14 or with pregnant women with no fixed income and are not government employees can be in the list.
From 2009 when the Bitancors were enrolled in the program, they still have Mary Grace at grade 5, Myra in grade 4 and Mauricio Jr. in Grade three all eagerly attending more than the 85% of the school days, per 4Ps condition.
The cash transfer grants P300 for each child aged between 0-14 (maximum of 3 per family) and another P500 for health assistance. That made it possible for the Bitancors to get P1,400 monthly in cash assistance.
DSWD-7 information officer Aileen Lariba added that before the Pantawid program, parents then used to ask their children to stop schooling and just help them in the farm. Today, parents are now pushing their kids to school lest their cash grants are suspended.
The family also makes sure that the visit to the health center becomes regular and they do not miss any Family Development Sessions (FDS). This is a crucial part of the conditions for the family to get involve in the FDS, stressed Jocelyn Adalid, social worker of the Pantawid program.
Here, families are taught basic skills, health tips and share technology to equip them with the right capacities to work out solutions to their problems, Lariba pointed out.
Mauricio shared that one of the sessions at the FDS was about vegetable gardening. He realized that it could be a good investment.
Wanting to earn more from vegetable gardening, the Bitancors took several other FDS very carefully learning about just anything they can on the livelihood options before them.
With the DSWD in convergence with other government agencies, the Bitancors also took Farmer Field School (FFS) and agricultural technologists piled upon them new technologies, modern farming methods, free seeds and organic farming technologies.
Mauricio shared that their children too pick on chores without being told when they saw how serious we were. Since then Ana Shirley has stopped working in Manila as house help, he said.
He learned the benefits of organic farming and getting alternative livelihood, added Mauricio, who shared that apart from a bigger garden they also ventured into hog and poultry production.
Mauricio explained that after a while, it is no longer the P1400 that counts but the sessions that opened our minds to honorably dig our way out of poverty.
“Poverty is not just about income but also about access to services,” he implied.
“Now, we are happier. It’s now unthinkable for us not sleeping or doing things together. We want this to be a lasting memory for our kids…loving parents hoping that they too build their families with the same bond,” Mauricio said nervously evading the camera.
Getting more and more engrossed on improving their lot and helping their community, Mauricio also crosses over as peer educator while Ana Shirley heads the Aurora Women’s Organization.
The couple has been empowered. They now constantly seek ways to improve their life and the community to hurdle challenges and hindrances to get them over to where the 4Ps wished them be after the program expires ends in five years time. (mbcn/rahc/PIA-Bohol)