Cagayan de Oro City — Beneficiaries of Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program (Pantawid Pamilya) of the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) Field Office 10 here continue to comply with the conditionalities of the program.
This is manifested on the latest national turn-out of the Family Development Session (FDS) in the Compliance Verification System of Pantawid Pamilya where Northern Mindanao occupied the number one post, leading 16 other regions.
The turn-out revealed that 98.84 percent of the total household beneficiaries of Pantawid Pamilya religiously attended the conduct of FDS. As of today, Northern Mindanao has 246, 677 active beneficiaries.
Lawyer Araceli F. Solamillo, Regional Director of DSWD Field Office 10, reiterated that FDS is one of the conditions that the beneficiaries should fulfill in order to continuously receive cash grants.
Solamillo reminded beneficiaries that the session’s attendance reflects the performance of the parents as the program’s main receivers of the program’s financial support.
FDS focal person Jerome Humawan disclosed that the highest attendance to FDS of parents in Northern Mindanao is the result of close coordination among DSWD, civil society organizations, local government units and other national government agencies.
The turn-out covers September to October last year.
However, Humawan said the parent beneficiaries sustained the highest attendance until the last week of December last year to this early week of this month.
The FDS serves as a venue where topics on effective parenting, husband and wife relationships, child development, laws affecting the Filipino family, gender and development and home management are being discussed.
Through the FDS, parents are also informed of their rights as individuals as well as their obligations that they need to fulfil not only as husband and wife but also as parents. Attendance in the FDS is part of the conditionalities of the program to receive cash grants.
This month, FDS module focuses on responsible parenthood and livelihood while measles prevention this February.
Pantawid Pamilya is the conditional cash transfer (CCT) of the national government. CCT programs were first demonstrated successful in Latin American countries two decades ago. As one of the pioneering CCT programs in Asia, the Pantawid Pamilya is a human capital investment program of the national government which ensures the health and education of poor children ages 0-14. This year, age coverage will be extended, from 0-14 to 0-18.
By providing opportunity for the development of the young, it envisions to prevent the vicious transmission of the cycle of poverty. (Written by Oliver Badel Inodeo, Pantawid Pamilya Information Officer)