Getting out of poverty and living a comfortable life has always been the dream of Cherry and Virgilio Canales for their family.
The couple, from Balangkayan, Eastern Samar, worked hard to provide for the needs of their four children. Cherry earned a living by buying and selling copra while Virgilio did sideline work like carpentry.
Their combined income, however, was still not enough to sustain the increasing needs of their family, especially since all of their children were attending school.
Fortunately in 2012, the Canales family became a beneficiary of the Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program (4Ps) of the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD).
4Ps is a flagship program of the national government on poverty reduction and social development with the DSWD as the lead implementing agency.
It provides cash grants to extremely poor households to improve their health, nutrition and education, particularly of children aged 0-18. 4Ps invests in human capital to break the intergenerational cycle of poverty among poor households.
“Kakukuri gud han amon kabutangan han waray pa ini nga programa. Usahay nagdudurungan an gastos ngan diri ako maaram kon hahain ako kukuha (Our situation was really hard when we were not yet a program beneficiary. Sometimes, I do not know where to get money to pay for all the bills and expenses),” Cherry narrated.
Family Development Sessions
Being a beneficiary of the program, Cherry is required to attend the monthly Family Development Sessions (FDS), which is one of the conditionalities of the 4Ps so that a beneficiary will receive their cash grants under the program.
The other conditionalities are sending their children to school and to health centers for regular check-up.
FDS is a significant feature of the 4Ps program as it employs neighborhood-based family psycho-educational activities to promote, empower and nurture beneficiaries toward strengthened capacity so they could meet their familial and parental responsibilities.
Through the FDS, 4Ps parents are provided with life skills, including livelihood skills training.
Topics discussed in the FDS include financial literacy, importance of saving money as well as enhancing family relationships; improving interpersonal skills; adopting good ties and fostering respect for one another.
Applying the lessons she gained and the skills she acquired from the sessions on financial literacy and savings helped Cherry set up and manage the family’s budding business, a sari-sari (retail) store.
The income from their store and the cash grants from 4Ps were a big help in meeting their daily needs, particularly for the children’s school and health requirements.
Cherry affirmed that her participation in the FDS also molded her personality and developed her networking skills.
As such, she was elected as a barangay official in their community, a position Cherry holds until now.
For the Canales couple, the program is not only about the cash grants they received but the lessons they gained from every topic discussed during the monthly FDS which strengthened their family relationship, helped them improved their economic well-being; and enabled them to become active participants to community building.
Investing in education and health
According to Cherry, 4Ps was a big help to her family because the grant they received gave them the opportunity to buy healthy and nutritious food for their children. In addition, the family no longer had to buy rice because the 4Ps has been providing its grantees with rice subsidies.
An equally significant impact of the program is helping the children continue with their studies.
The grants they received were budgeted properly. Cherry made sure that every cent of the grants was used for the children’s school needs.
Through the 4Ps cash grants, two of their children have graduated from college and are now gainfully employed.
Charence Mae is already a Police Officer in Tarlac City while Cherry Belle works in a pawnshop in Manila. They are now supporting their parents to send their two younger siblings to school.
Ready to graduate
Presently, the family’s sari-sari store is still one of their sources of income.
Cherry also continues to work as a barangay official and is still engaged in her buy and sell business.
On the other hand, Virgilio still does carpentry work.
With what they have already accomplished, the Canales family knows that they would soon graduate from the program.
The family is now tagged as “non-poor” and has attained a Self-Sufficiency level of well-being, based on the assessment of DSWD Field Office VIII using the social welfare and development indicators.
The Canales family is among the more than 4.3 million beneficiaries of 4Ps nationwide whose journey towards an improved quality of life is marked by their perseverance and eagerness to acquire skills that may help them in achieving their dreams of having a comfortable life, complemented by the modest help from the government. #
