Homeowners from Barangay Mambaling gather at Cebu City Hall to get their P10,000 cash assistance.
cdn photo/doris mae mondragon
At least 230 homeowners from Barangay Mambaling trooped to City Hall yesterday on the first day of distribution of cash assistance in line with the Department of Social Welfare and Development in Central Visayas’ (DSWD-7) Sustainable Livelihood Program (SLP).
The recipients were among the 1,235 homeowners of the Barangay Mambaling who will receive P10,000 cash assistance each from the DSWD.
Barangay Mambaling was chosen as the pilot beneficiary of the program since the homeowners’ associations in the barangay were the first to comply with the requirements for the distribution of cash aid.
City Mayor Tomas Osmeña said the DSWD will hire additional personnel to ensure that all beneficiaries of the program are legitimate and that they have undergone the proper procedures, while the city will be paying for the services of hired workers.
“Ang ma-release karon (Monday), is for the 11 associations pa but isunod na ang kuwang nga 42 ka homeowners associations sa Mambaling,” said Leah Japson, head of the city’s Department Social Welfare and Services (DSWS).
After Mambaling, the next recipients of the cash aid are the homeowner beneficiaries from barangays Sawang Calero and Banilad.
Japson said the P5 thousand or half of the given amount will be allocated for the chosen business of the association, while the other half will go to the beneficiary for his/her chosen livelihood.
The DSWD and the city government are targeting to complete the distribution of cash aid for the more than 70,000 SLP beneficiaries from the city’s 80 barangays this year. Under the SLP, the DSWS chooses the beneficiaries of the program while the DSWD distributes the cash assistance.
For an individual to qualify as a beneficiary of the SLP, he or she must be a resident of Cebu City whose annual salary is not more than P60,000.
Japson also said that those who have already availed other livelihood program of the DSWD are not qualified to join.
Japson said a monitoring team from the DSWD and the DSWS will monitor each homeowner association to ensure sustainability of the program.
“Kung ma-sustain lang gyud ni ang livelihood sa tagsa-tagsa, di na kaayo ingon ana ka daghan ang maglisod diri sa city,” Japson said.