“Ang ating ginagawang biometric ay pagpapaunlad para siguraduhin na ang tunay na dapat tumanggap ng tulong, siya mismo ang tatanggap ,” Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) Secretary Corazon Juliano-Soliman said during the Launching of the Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program’s Biometric Payout in Upi, Maguindanao last February 20, 2013.
Cleaner, More Efficient System
“Pantawid Pamilya launches the biometric system to ensure fraud-free CCT implementation,” said Sec. Hadja Bainon Gabar-Karon, Regional Secretary of DSWD Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM).
The biometric system uses fingerprint recognition to counter the reports of fraud and misrepresentation. According to Sec. Soliman, it addresses the numerous complaints that there are grant claimers who are not beneficiaries of the program. The system also aims to safeguard the program from the reports of baklas or tampered IDs and barangay officials or other people holding beneficiaries’ ATM cards.
With the new system, the identification and giving of grants to the beneficiaries will be more efficient. The system immediately displays the photo of the beneficiary and the amount of cash grant to be received after the identification.
According to Sec. Soliman, the verification is also faster because the system is connected to the Compliance Verification System where the Department of Education and the Department of Health monitor attendance of children and Rural Health Unit (RHU) checkups.
“Isa sa mga tuntungan ng pamahalaan ngayon ay ang matuwid na daan. Bahagi po ito ng pagsisigurado na nasa matuwid na daan tayo, na ang tunay na nangangailangan ang siyang tumatanggap sa tamang pamamaraan,” Sec. Soliman emphasized.
Partnership with beneficiaries, DSWD ARMM, LGU
“Ito po ay partnership ng magulang at ng lokal at pambansang pamahalaan,” Sec. Soliman said.
According to Upi Mayor Ramon A. Piang Sr., they are thankful of the trust that DSWD National and Regional had given them to launch the first Pantawid Pamilya biometric payout in their municipality. He is appealing to all Pantawid beneficiaries that they should honor and use that trust in a proper and right way.
The Local Government Unit (LGU) of Upi said that they coordinate with the school board, health board, school supervisors, doctors and health workers in RHU to check the compliance in enrolment, attendance in schools, and health checkups. Hon. Piang said that they also have cluster health teams to supervise the pregnancy tracking system in barangays.
The implementation of the program, according to Sec. Soliman, gets better every day because DSWD ARMM is looking for different ways to direct the help to the deserving. She attributed the increase in enrolment rate, health checkups, and number of children who are present in schools to the ensuring of proper program implementation.
Empowering youth, beneficiaries
The biometric system, Sec. Soliman said, is empowering not only the beneficiaries but also the youth like the scholars who adapted the system to identify beneficiaries.
“ to create and maintain a biometric system that is able to authenticate individuals reliably which will streamline processes and address compliance,” said Argie Abedejos, 18, one of the Income Creating Opportunities Thru Technology Project (ICOTP-ICT) scholars who developed the system.
According to Gilbert Carilla, Abadejos’s supervisor in project development, they are working towards “enhancement of the features of the system despite the challenging cases in Maguindanao, particularly in the data side.”
The coverage of the data and photo capturing are the registered households from Maguindanao and Lanao del Sur. As of February 20, 81,201 out of 156,188 targeted beneficiaries in Maguindanao and 17,554 out of 80,177 targeted beneficiaries in Lanao del Sur are already registered in the biometric system. ### (Pantawid Pamilya-NPMO-Social Marketing Unit)
