By: Rey Anthony Chiu

Almost 6,000 families from seven additional towns in Bohol would expect a good head start in 2012 for their inclusion into the government’s conditional cash grants. This puts the number of Bohol town beneficiaries to 31, or 18 more towns to cover the whole province in assistance. Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program (4Ps) provincial link Angelita D. Genil hesitantly breaks the good news, not really wanting to jump into the details without first giving the privileged information to the local chief executives first. Pressed for data during the recent DSWD 4Ps forum with the local media at the Philippine Information Agency here Thursday, Genil admitted the regional office only learned of the development a few days before the forum.

According to her, residents in the selected barangays in the towns of Guindulman, Candijay, Clarin, Duero, Lila, San Isidro and Valencia can start verifying the list posted in the barangays. Of these, Guindulman tops the most number of beneficiaries in a town with 1338, followed by Candijay with 1,281 and the Valencia with 1,035. Other beneficiaries would come from Clarin (738), Duero (712), San isidro (334) and Lia, (329). With the recent development, the DSWD expects and additional 5,807 household beneficiaries from these seven towns. For those expansion town residents, DSWD advised that they would need to check if their names are in the list posted at barangay halls. “As soon as residents find their names in the posted list, make sure they come for the registration while bringing along with them birth or baptismal certificates of children 0-14 years old, certificate of enrollment from the schools, marriage contracts (if beneficiary is married), two 1x1 picture in white background, with name and corresponding household id written on a board,” DSWD urged.

“We have been attempting to connect to several mayors in the seven expansion areas, unluckily, some of them do not have fax machines and we are at a loss on how to get the news to them,” Genil said. On this, the media offered help during the forum. It may be recalled that by November of 2009, from Danao town, the 4Ps spread to set 3 areas in Alicia, Bien Unido, Buenavista, Carmen, Dagohoy, Inabanga, Getafe, Mabini, Pilar, CP Garcia, Trinidad and Ubay. Few months later, 4PS crossed over to Anda, Balilihan, Batuan, Calape, Catigbian, Danao, Loon, Sagbayan, San Miguel and then to Talibon. Not long later, Tagbilaran City and Sierra Bullones followed suit, said Genil. This then puts a little more than 40,000 poor Boholanos availing of the government assistance.