We at the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) have been in pursuit of continued excellence as we relentlessly fulfill our mandate—to serve the poor, vulnerable, and the marginalized sectors of our society. To level-up our quality of governance and exemplify improved public service, we adopted the Performance Governance System (PGS) Pathways. The PGS is a holistic and collaborative framework for designing, executing, monitoring, and sustaining roadmaps to reform—raising the standards of strategy setting for Philippine public sector institutions.

We had the leadership and the key offices set and committed to this undertaking. We had eight years’ worth of goals, objectives, and targets laid down for us to endeavor our transformation as a government agency. We were ready to take our first few steps towards further raising our standards through our strategy—until the COVID-19 outbreak started.

As the lead agency in social protection, DSWD has been tasked to support families who have been mostly-affected by the pandemic through the implementation of the Emergency Cash Subsidy under the Social Amelioration Program. In addition, we, along with our fellow national government agencies, have been asked to develop our own Response and Recovery Plans to implement the Philippine COVID-19 National Action Plan.

Fulfilling our mandate to the Filipino people in the midst of the unprecedented changes caused by the pandemic—while at the same time continuously pursuing the demands of reaching our proficiency journey as part of our strategy implementation—was admittedly challenging. But we endeavored for the DSWD strategy to remain at the forefront of our implementation. We did not let it take a backseat and wait until everything returns to normal, because the truth is, we will never go back to normal.

As we reflected and searched for meaning, we realized that the focus of DSWD’s strategy remains a greater purpose for the people we serve. As such, we need to continuously level-up our quality of governance and exemplify improved public service to help affected families and communities recover from these dark times and find strength and hope again. We have also reached out to our partners—and we received support and assurance that this important undertaking is not only for DSWD to take alone. Together, we will take our purpose in the policies we craft, dialogues we hold, and in the relationship we build with other government agencies, local government units, and most importantly, with the people whom we serve.

This new-found meaning becomes our strength. Our rediscovery of our objectives in this situation is our rediscovery of the way we collaborate and accomplish things. The current situation became an opportunity for us to re-assess, and ultimately, reframe our various internal processes so we can further improve and raise our standards of public service. This requires an arduous series of tasks, but we have started to enthusiastically take on the work.

We are positioning ourselves in synchronizing our planning, programming, budgeting, and expenditure management; reinforcing crisis communications and social marketing; and undergoing a participatory in-depth situational analysis on the impact of the pandemic on us as an organization.

We have committed to strive to work towards better solutions, more focused deliverables, established information-driven infrastructures, and leaner processes. We have also committed to better connect with our clients and within ourselves so we can be more responsive to their needs. To achieve all these, we have started within ourselves—we are exerting efforts to make our personnel feel more supported and safe, and we are continuously striving to provide them with an environment that is conducive to their growth and development.

We at DSWD are now working hard to fulfill this new calling. We pledge to continuously grow and transform so that we can further enhance the resiliency of our agency and keep providing excellent public service to our fellow citizens in need in the midst of this pandemic. Through these, we can bring more changes in our society and transform it as we envision it to be. ###