Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program

Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program: “Kaya ng Pinoy tumawid sa Kaunlaran” One afternoon, I bought chips and drinks in a mini-mart. I fall in a long line with people who are too busy checking up their groceries. I heard one talking about the money that they have to budget in a week or two that in some sort helps them in their living. The cash that they had was from a program. I was too curious about the program that they were talking about, what comes next was I found myself talking to one of these people about the program. The Bridge of the Filipino People

Pantawid Pamilya Pilipino Program is one of government’s programs that aims to reduce the number of poor Filipinos through helping them in health and education particularly children who suffer at ages 0-14. The Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program provides cash subsidies to poor households in the country with zero to 14 years old children. It provides a P500 monthly allowance per household and P300 monthly per child under the health and education package respectively granted that the beneficiaries follow the set conditions of the program on health and education.

Included in the program conditions are regular health checkups for children, pre- and post-natal checkups for pregnant women, 85 percent school attendance for children, and attendance on family development sessions monthly of parent-beneficiaries. Further, because of several factors that affect the indigenous people’s welfare – among which are cultural belief, isolation and lack of education, there is a need to establish links with non-government organizations, concerned local government units, and Civil Society Organizations to provide services and ensure the general welfare of the said group and address their specific concerns.

Also, the DSWD Field Office IV-A reported that more frequent monitoring is being conducted to the group to ensure high compliance of the said families to program conditions and high involvement in the program activities. Other services being provided to the said groups are supplemental feeding, literacy class, livelihood projects, and birth registration. The program covers 17 regions, 80 provinces, 733 cities/municipalities including Lipa City. All in all, there are 1 million poor households covered in the program. Objectives of Pantawid Program

First is eradating extreme poverty and hunger, achieving universal primary education, promoting gender equality and empowering women. It provides assistance to the poor to alleviate their immediate needs and break the intergenerational cycle of poverty investment in human capital such as education, health and nutrition. The program aims to respond on the basic needs of the poor families through financial assistance and to elevate the poor through helping poor families in terms of their health, nutrition and education. Procedure on Beneficiaries selection:

The DSWD-Region IV-A hired personnel for the survey of Lipenos last 2009. The following filled up form will proceed to Proxy Means Test (PMP). A machine that will determine the socio-economic category of families or either the families is poorest household. Third quarter of 2011, the DSWD Region IVA, provide us a copy of master list of eligible household with a total of 9,201 families/ Fourth quarter of 2011, we assisted the DSWD staff for organization of Assemblies for validation of household at PVM School and Marawoy-wherein our constituent submitted birth certificate, marriage contract, barangay clearance and 2 valid ID’s.

From 9,201 household, 7,323 are complied with the requirements of the program. (1,878 not passed) Memorandum of agreement was signed by the Mayor. Identification card was given to qualified beneficiaries. There is only one design of the ID distributed to 72 barangay by the DSWD Central Office. The distribution of ID was done 2nd week to 3rd week of March simultaneously to cope with the scheduled of the pay out on March 27-31, 2012 for the month of January and February 2012.

The amount of grant for the said month will be given on a cash basis at Landbank, Marawoy, lipa City by presenting the Identification Card issued. The program provides conditional cash to beneficiaries through Landbank. What are the Pantawid Benefits Health and Nutrition grant were P500. 00 per household and a total of 6,000 per year or yearly. In education, 300. 00 per month will be given per child for 10 months a year to a maximum of 3 children per household. A household with 3 qualified children (5-14 years old) will received a total of P900. 0 as long as they comply with the conditionality’s. Based on the category the amount to be received by the beneficiaries for a month were 500, 800, 1,100 and 1400 (based on the approved beneficiaries of the program) Last January and February the program have a total of 15,079,000. 00 grant to 7,323 Lipenos. The Conditionalities (Co-responsibilities of household beneficiaries) For the nutrition of children 0-5 years old, the beneficiary should visit the city health center to avail immunization.

They should also have a monthly weight monitoring and nutrition counselling for the children age 0-2 years old and have quarterly weight monitoring for the age 25-37 weeks old. Lastly, they should have management of childhood disease for sick children 6-14 years old and must receive de worming pills twice a year. For the education of children ages 3-5 years old, they should be enrolled in day care of pre-school program and maintain a class attendance rate of at least 85% per month.

For the children 6-14 years old they should also be enrolled in Elementary and Secondary School and maintain a class attendance rate of at least 85% per month. Aside from that, the parents or the guardian have their own responsibility. They must attend family development session at least once a month. They should participate in a community activities, (cleanliness drive, etc. ) and promote and strengthen the implementation of the program. “Pantawid Tulong” for the lipeno Families As of August 2012, there are 7, 290 lipeno grantees of Pantawid Pamilya

Program and they are monitored every 2 months. The support of the City Mayor, Hon. Meynard A. Sabili to the implementation of the program was continuous as he personally participates in all of the activities of the program. He acted like a father caring to 7, 329 children and always reminding them of the Pantawid contionalities and how to be a good parent to their children. “Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program is a blessing to our family. I found a new partner to help me sustain the needs of my children.. ” Ate Elsa said, one of the program’s beneficiary. -Yvette Landicho