TABUK CITY, Kalinga – Jolted by the information that the city has the most number of poor households in the region, officials here vowed to take on the challenge of shaking off the tag within the next three years.
“I take this as a wake up call. While combating poverty has always been a part of the LGU’s endeavors, this unpleasant discovery should spur us to exert more efforts and to think of more effective means to rescue our unfortunate constituents from the clutches of poverty,” Mayor Ferdinand Tubban said.
Tubban related that he was dismayed when he learned that according to the National Housing Targeting System survey conducted by the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) last year, the city has the highest number of poor families among LGUs in the region.
The information jibed with the result of the Community-based Monitoring System (CBMS) conducted last year which showed that the city had a poverty incidence of 37.3 percent which is 11 percent above the national poverty incidence of 26.3 percent.
The CBMS is a survey which determines who are poor, where are the poor and why are they poor.
The figure means that 37 percent of households in the city earn less than P19,228.00 and P18,354.00 per urban and rural household, respectively.
The concern prompted the leadership of the city to focus the Executive Legislative Agenda (ELA) of the city during this term on poverty alleviation.
Foremost of the interventions set in place by the LGU leadership is the Oplan Matagoan: CULASA, BABAGO SA GUINAMMA, a poverty alleviation project piloting the 10 poorest barangays namely, Guilayon, Nambukayan, Magnao, Cudal, Bantay, Laya West, Gobgob, San Juan, San Julian and Bado Dangwa.
Tubban said that the target of the operation plan is to reduce the poverty incidence in the 10 barangays by three percent a year in the next three years “but not setting aside the other barangays.”
“The strategy to be employed is convergence of the poverty-alleviation efforts and resources of concerned offices in the LGU and likewise other government agencies with poverty alleviation programs. The private sector will also be encouraged to join in the fight,” Tubban said.
Eisenhower Bucalen of the City Planning and Development Office informed the Zigzag Weekly that aside from the Oplan Matagoan, the usual interventions to ease poverty such as provision of livelihood assistance and infrastructure support will be maintained during the term.
He cited the case of the adjacent barangays of Magnao, Guilayon and Nambukayan where residents are hard up in bringing down the products to the market such that their expected profits are eaten by the freight and at times the quality of the products is affected by the hauling.
“At the end of the day, they get little profit from their agricultural products. The roads really have to be paved to enhance the ease of travel,” Bucalen said.
Bucalen also informed that during the ELA formulation session, it was noted that sanitation is a problem in some barangays what with the high incidence of households with no sanitary toilets and with no access to water in these barangays.
Bucalen said that the two indicators go together because the parameter of sanitary toilets is that they must be water sealed.
During the ELA workshop, City Health Officer Henrietta Bagayao had revealed that one other cause for the high number of households which lack sanitary toilets is the pervasiveness of the attitude of dependence on government assistance for the provision of sanitary toilets.
She had said that many residents are not contented with the giveaway toilet bowls but also want the government to give them cement for the construction of their toilets.
“It is supposed to be the responsibility of every household to construct its own sanitary toilet. At least, they should also give a counterpart for the provision of the facility,” Bucalen said. ** By Estanislao Albano,. Jr.
