Anti-poverty projects expand to more WV towns, cities

Anti-poverty projects expand to more WV towns, cities

Monday 9th of April 2012

ILOILO CITY, April 9 (PIA6) -- Government’s Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino (4Ps) and KALAHI-Comprehensive, Integrated Delivery of Social Services (CIDSS) programs will expand coverage in 37 more towns and cities in Western Visayas.

To date, there are already 118 local government units out of 133 covered by the Pantawid Pamilya, with 266,591 households served.

DSWD-6 Information Officer May Castillo said KALAHI-CIDSS is in 34 localities, while the sustaining SEA-K is in all LGUs.

Castillo said the expansion areas were reached recently, upon the signing of the memorandum of agreement among partners, in the presence of Social Welfare Secretary Dinky Soliman, Governor Victor Tanco of Capiz, Governor Arthur Defensor of Iloilo, Congressman Rahman Nava of Guimaras and Congresswoman Janet Garin of Iloilo’s First District, and Country Director Matt Bohn of the Millennium Challenge Corporation.

DSWD said that of the 37, 32 are under the Pantawid Pamilya, the government’s conditional cash transfer, while five are those for the KALAHI-CIDSS, using a community-driven approach for programs.

The 4Ps expansion areas include the towns of Badiangan, Barotac Nuevo, Cabatuan, Dumangas, Estancia, Mina, New Lucena, Pototan, Tigbauan, Zarraga, and Dingle, in the province of Iloilo.

For the province of Capiz, the expansion areas are Roxas City, Panit-an, Pontevedra, Cuartero, Dao, Dumalag, Ivisan, Sigma and Mambusao.

In Antique the areas are Hamtic, Pandan, Tobias Fornier, and Sibalom, while in Negros Occidental, these are Victorias City, Silay City, La Carlota City and Talisay, and in Guimaras, Jordan and Nueva Valencia and only Lezo in Aklan.

Under KALAHI, the areas are Sibunag in Guimaras, and Calatrava, Isabela, Ilog and Murcia in Negros Occidental.

Secretary Soliman said the conditional cash transfer basically reaches two basic situations in the family – education and health, primarily to keep the children in school and prepare for them a better future, so that the cycle of poverty will be broken.

Soliman also underscored the need for support infrastructures which can help the family sustain the assistance given them, like schools, health stations, roads and bridges.

“This is why the Millennium Challenge Corporation is here in the region to help in community development,” Soliman said.

She also said that the results of the programs cannot be continued without sustained livelihood activities through the SEA-K, implemented in all localities in the region. (JCM/ESS/PIA-Iloilo)

Cabatuan.com - Timeline 2012