TACLOBAN CITY- The regional office of the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) will initiate cash-for-work programs intended to help victims of supertyphoon Yolanda.
This was revealed by Nestor Ramos, DSWD regional director, who said that the cash-for-work programs is part of the government’s rehabilitation effort, over three months after Yolanda pummeled the region on November 8,2013.
The DSWD will enter into a memorandum of agreement (MOA) with various local government units, areas hit by Yolanda, to implement the cash-for-work programs, Ramos said.
Under the agreement, the LGUs would implement the program with the DSWD giving the funding.
Those who will benefit the cash programs would receive their salaries based on the current wage standard in the region. At present, a worker in the region is entitled to receive P260 pay a day.
“We have proposed to the LGUs various kinds of cash-for-work such as cash-for-repair of house, cash-for- repair of boat, cash-for collecting debris and other similar scheme,” Ramos told Leyte Samar Daily Express.
Ramos disclosed that the DSWD would create a monitoring team whose main duty and responsibility is to monitor the developments of the cash-for-work programs to be implemented after their relief distribution would end next month.
The DSWD official also encourages the public to do their own monitoring and report to their office if they believe the program is not being implemented according to its purpose.
“The people have the bigger responsibility on the implementation of these cash-for-work programs because the money which will be used is not just come from the government but from the taxpayers, “Ramos said.
The giving of relief items by the DSWD would end on March 31 though so-called “vulnerable sectors” would continue to receive them.
The implementation of the cash-for-work programs would help the families that would no longer eligible to receive the relief goods.
Ramos said that the provinces of Biliran, Eastern Samar, Samar and Tacloban City were the identified areas under the cash-for-work programs of the department.
Ramos also said that the World Food Program (WFP) had identified Eastern Samar as the main beneficiary for their cash-for-work program which will focus more on the agricultural side.
The WFP and other food and agriculture organizations are gearing up for a medium- to long-term recovery intervention by supporting livelihoods through cash-for-work and other livelihood opportunities such as vegetable, pig and poultry farming in the target affected areas.
By: RYAN GABRIEL LLOSAR ARCENAS
