A couple of weeks ago I and other officials and employees of the Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office traveled to Negros Occidental and Negros Oriental to distribute ambulances and Lotto shares to those provinces.
Last week I discussed how the turnover ceremony of 17 ambulances to those two provinces took place at the Bacolod Provincial Capitol.
Five ambulances were given to Negros Oriental: Tayasan, Ayungon, Santa Catalina, city of Tanjay, and Inapoy Community Primary Hospital.
From Bacolod we went to Dumaguete City, Negros Oriental, to inspect the PCSO branch there at the Gov. Perdices Sports Complex. Headed by Belena Alvarez, the branch is a mini-version of the head office, and, like all branches, can deliver all the services of the agency.
While there, we turned over some P2 million in Lotto shares to the following areas:
Valencia, P139,000; Dauin, P150,000; Sibulan, P267,000; Ayungon, P28,000; San Jose, P24,000; city of Dumaguete, P1.29 million; city of Bais, P89,000; city of Tanjay, P162,000. Lotto shares are corresponding percentages from the gross sales of PCSO outlets located in a city or municipality.
We also met Negros Oriental Gov. Roel R. Degamo, who said that PCSO is one of their valued partners because health programs are prioritized in his province.
In line with their efforts, Degamo pointed to a drop in malnutrition rates in the province. From 11.31 percent in 2009, malnutrition rates declined over the years to 6.8 percent last year, thanks to better nutrition education programs, the Conditional Cash-Transfer Program, school-based feeding programs and vegetable nurseries in schools, among other collectively-implemented programs of national agencies and local
government units.
He also mentioned the advantages of bottom-up budgeting in helping to reduce poverty rates in the province.
Now this brings us to an interesting topic: what is bottom-up budgeting (BUB), and how does it benefit our kababayan at the grassroots level?
According to the Department of Budget and Management, BUB is the government’s participatory budgeting program that provides funding of P20 million “for a priority poverty-reduction program proposed by a city or municipality.”
Since 2013 around 1,590 local government units have participated in the program while “42,221 projects have been funded, of which 13,712 have been completed” as of December 1, 2015.
For 2016, P24.7 billion from the national budget has been set aside for 14,325 BUB projects. Funds are being directly released to the municipalities. The BUB program will be “expanded next year to cover 42,036 barangays nationwide,” at a subsidy of P1 million for each barangay.
This funding will help barangays formulate better poverty-reduction action plans and monitor “the delivery of basic services to communities,” with an initial 12,000 barangays to receive this type of funding from the national government in 2017.
BUB is one of the many social-welfare programs under the daang matuwid framework of the Aquino administration that seeks to enable the benefits of the country and region’s economic growth to transform the lives of Filipinos in an inclusive manner.
This week we journey to Romblon to distribute ambulances there and inspect a PCSO property that might be suitable for establishing a branch office.
The PCSO continues, as ever, to raise funds for charity and deliver services when and where it is needed. This is our agency’s mandate and mission, for the past 81 years and beyond.
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Atty. Rojas is vice chairman and general manager of the Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office.