The beneficiaries of the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD)’s Sustainable Livelihood Program (SLP) are from seven sitios of Barangays Kingking and Napnapan in Pantukan town of said province.
They received P300,000 each personally handed over by the town mayor Roberto M. Yugo.
The SLP is a community-based capacity building program for poor, vulnerable and marginalized communities to improve their socio-economic conditions.
Lt. Col. Enrique Rafael, the commanding officer of Philippine Army’s 48th Infantry Battalion thanked the local government units and government agencies in the province for providing livelihood assistance to the POs.
“These monetary grants will be utilized as capital seed to achieve positive livelihood outcomes specially that these people belonged to Conflict-Affected Areas (CAAs) and longed for government services,” he said.
Most of the recipients have surrendered to the government troops in 2020 after realizing the wrong, deceptive path they took for years reorganizing themselves to the People’s Organization.
According to Rafael, these former rebels are now helping the government in pursuing peace and development in their areas.
They also served as living testimony of the efforts to bridge the gap between government and geographically isolated and disadvantaged areas (GIDAs) and bring them services that they deserved. (By Ruth Palo)
PHOTOS: 10th ID