The national government has allotted P648 million for the Grassroots Participatory Budgeting Program for poverty reduction in the towns and cities of Negros Occidental for 2014, a Department of Interior and Local Government official said yesterday.

Ma. Joy Maredith Madayag, DILG provincial director, said the GPB program was formulated in pursuit of attaining the Philippine Development Plan’s goal for inclusive growth, and to promote good governance.
         
Under the program, local Poverty Reduction Action Teams of towns and cities will prepare a plan for their poverty reduction projects, submit it to the regional poverty reduction action team, led by the DILG, that will forward it to the national PRAT, Madayag said.
         
The national PRAT approves the proposals and releases the budget to the appropriate national agencies for implementation, she said.
         
In Negros Occidental, the budget given per town and city  for the implementation of the GPB program ranges  from P15 million to P49 million, she said.
         
Records of the Listahanan, or the National Household Targeting System for Poverty Reduction, of the Department of Social Welfare and Development showed that about 35.3 percent of the poor households in Western Visayas could be found in Negros Occidental, since 2010.
Of the 392,710 poor households identified in Region 6, there were 138,664 from Negros Occidental.

Iloilo province is ranked second with 122,770, or about 31.3 percent, of the total number of poor households in Western Visayas, followed by Capiz with 47,047 poor households, or about 11 percent.

The Listahan is the basis for choosing beneficiaries of the DSWD social protection programs, Provincial Social Welfare and Development officer Liane Garcia had said earlier.

Executive Order No. 867 was also issued on March 2010, directing all national government agencies to use the Listahanan in identifying prospective beneficiaries for social protection programs nationwide.

Another household assessment is being eyed this year, covering 1,323,778 families, to identify the poorest households in Region 6.*APN

back to top