By Roselle Lay-um

Barangay Sinuda, Kitaotao, Bukidnon

I am Roselle Lacubay Lay-um, 32, married to Mr. Renante Lay-um, and blessed with two lovely daughters. 

I’m a full-blooded Matigsalug from Sinuda Kitaotao Bukidnon. I have been one of the MCCTIP (Modified Conditional Cash Transfer for Indigenous People) beneficiaries since 2014 under Anelita V. Villantes, our Community Facilitator. 

Life has always been challenging for us. 

If you belong to minorities like the Matigsalug, opportunities are so intractable, making life even more difficult. 

It’s making us think that life is unfair no matter how hard we strive to get and make life easier, but it’s all messed up. 

We don’t get equal opportunities as others, even if we give it all. 

But later, I realized that I was wrong! 

It was unfair to judge life as not fair because it’s always been beautiful. 

Life is what we make it, as they say.

Then I started to learn to transform my thinking rather than jumping to conclusions rapidly just because I didn’t get as good a fortune as others. 

I focus on being positive and helpful when dealing with difficult situations like poverty.

Looking back, before I became a beneficiary of MCCTIP (Modified Conditional Cash Transfer for Indigenous People), our resources were always inadequate. 

If you’re married with two kids and have unstable financial resources, it’s a huge problem. 

You always run after the family’s needs, and it’s not good because it consumes all your time and energy.

To help us cope with our situation, I help my husband through gardening. 

My husband works on the farm, and I do the chores at home. 

We both enjoy our roles and responsibilities as a parent. 

At least we get to save some money because we don’t run out of vegetable supplies at home. 

I fell in love with vegetable gardening because it helps divert my attention and gives me positive vibes and energy to keep going and look forward to fruitful days. 

Most importantly, it helps us provide food for the whole family and make our children well-nourished.

A woman like me who faces financial scarcity is prone to stress and loss of self-confidence. 

But luckily, I was able to manage it, and gardening helped me a lot, and prayers, of course! 

With the help of my husband, no matter how difficult it is or what happens, our commitment to lifting each other’s spirits is always our priority.

My husband helps our church and community translate the Cebuano Bible to our Matigsalug dialect. 

After graduating from college, he started working as a missionary and volunteering to translate the bible into our native dialect. 

He loves doing his job as part of our church’s ministry. 

While he is busy doing his ministry, he maintains a farm from which we get most of our means, and he loves being on the farm. 

From other people’s perspectives, farming is not a good option for him because he’s got a college degree. 

However, to us, anything that’s legal is noble.

Since we started a family, we have lived with my parents, and I think everybody knows all the pros and cons of doing it. 

We aim to grow as parents and, in any way possible, to create our family independently.

So we asked one of my brothers if we could stay in their hut since they don’t live in it for quite some time. It is located just a few steps from my parent’s house. 

And there we lived by ourselves and started building our growing family, which was so lovely.

We felt like we had all the freedom to manage our lives, but we never got away from financial scarcity until, one day in 2014, I became a member of MCCT-IP. 

It was a relief for me because 4Ps cash grants provide most of our kids’ essential needs. We also get to start saving money for our other needs.

As part of my responsibility as a member of this program, I actively participated in our monthly Community Family Development Session (CFDS), so I get updated on things integral to empowering myself as one of the pillars in building a strong and God-fearing family. 

Indeed, this program and its holistic approach are such a massive help to me. 

Once, my husband and I discussed how we could use the upcoming grant from the program. We agree to use it for its purpose.

Also, we made it a habit to save money. This time we invested in something our kids can benefit from. So we tried opening a business in ukay-ukay.

We started doing house-to-house selling ukay-ukay on a piece of luggage. 

Most of our products are from Davao City. It is composed chiefly of blankets, bags, underwear, and kids’ wear worth Ph2,800.00 per bundle, precisely the grant I received for a month of compliance. 

Our goal is to gain profits, so we work hard even under bad weather, which is endurable. 

Sometimes, people’s reaction towards what we do is not endurable, knowing that my husband has a college degree. 

We continued anyway until one day, we finally had our mini-store! 

This time we started buying and selling rice, some grocery items, and basic needs.

This is what the store looks like now. 

I’m grateful to God and to the program for showing us life possibilities and empowering IPs to have better perspectives in life. 

This store has become one of the sources of income for my family’s needs. 

It keeps me busy, but it is easier than how we started on a piece of luggage.

We still look forward to having a better store than what we have right now. 

It was pretty impossible starting from scratch, yet we were able to do it, so we are dreaming bigger this time because DSWD, through the MCCT-IP, helps people make their dreams come true like ours! 

They are offering possibilities and giving us care. I am proud to say that our life is getting better now. 

Thanks to DSWD for the grant that we receive every other month. 

What we do for the money we receive is our way of saying thank you for trusting us. To be charged is as beautiful a compliment as being loved. 

All is okay, and my family is confident that sailing will be smooth now since we feel secure with our needs. 

However, the last several months have been such a trying time for everyone when Covid-19 invaded our serene dwelling place and put our health security in danger.

I think no one was ready for it, and it’s beyond one’s imagination that this would happen to all of us. 

Everybody needed help. Everyone screams for assistance, and there are millions of us! 

This scenario is all over the news and social media, and it’s scarier because the enemy we are battling is invisible to our naked eyes.

Thinking about all the possible virus infections in my family terrifies me. It adds up to my fear of having no enough food for us. 

The store has to be closed to keep everyone in the family safe from catching the deadly virus. 

But worrying too much is a waste of time and energy and does not help solve any of the problems we face. 

All government agencies are busy responding to the needs of the people, and it might take them some time to reach us. 

So we had to double our work and help ourselves first.

Everything seemed chaotic already, and it was affecting us psychologically. 

So going back to the basics is our best option – farming and gardening.  

Not only can it help us provide food for the family, but it can also help us to be resilient to what’s happening around us. 

The photo shows part of what we did to help our situation.

It’s been six years now since I became a member of this program. 

I am grateful for all the benefits provided to my family and me. 

It is an excellent help to us, especially during these trying times. 

The Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) never fails to give us support and show us the true meaning of Pagmamalasakit to everyone, anywhere and anytime.

I want to thank Ma’am Angelita V. Villante’s for showing us all the care we need and helping us gain self-confidence and self-importance.

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