More than 20,800 families who were affected and have evacuated in Northern Mindanao during the crisis in Marawi City have received payment from the Department of Social Welfare and Development for their services rendered under the Department’s Cash for Work Program.

In its program implementation guidelines, each internally displaced person (IDP) is paid P200 per day for 10 days for giving various services like cleaning premises in evacuation centers, dredging of canals, and other services related to the maintenance of cleanliness in evacuation centers and communities. DSWD has already extended a total of P41,658,000.00 as of October 19, 2017, for the Cash for Work Program.

To date, the DSWD’s payment for the services rendered by the internally displaced families is still ongoing and are done through scheduling scheme by area.

The DSWD however emphasizes that those who are qualified under the Cash for Work Program are those that are in the clean list of internally displaced families prepared by the local government units where they are temporarily staying, the local government unit of Marawi City, and the DSWD.

“We would like to emphasize that only those in our list are qualified to work for the Cash for Work Program and are entitled to be paid by the DSWD,” Nestor B. Ramos, Regional Director of DSWD-X, says.

“We have made a thorough and careful cleansing of our list to ensure that there is no duplicity of entries, and that all eligible families who are truly affected by the crisis in Marawi City are given with their due assistance,” Ramos said.

It can be recalled that the last day of registration of the internally displaced families affected by the Marawi Siege was slated on July 5, 2017, to finalize the list of IDPs in Region X for review and validation by the local and national governments.

The DSWD is also encouraging the IDPs to wait for their schedule of payment to be announced by their barangay officials, of which the DSWD and CSWD is closely coordinating with.

The DSWD also advises those IDPs who were not able to receive their payment during the scheduled payout to report to the City or Municipal Social Welfare and Development Offices of where they are temporarily staying. The CSWDO or MSWDO shall then report their names to the DSWD for another schedule of payout.

Written by Charmaine P. Tadlas, Regional Information Officer