The Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) is celebrating its 71st founding anniversary this January with an International Organization for Standardization certification affirming its quality standards in the delivery of social welfare and development programs and services.
For seven decades, the DSWD has consistently earned the public’s trust in performing its mandate to meet the varying social welfare and development needs of the poor, vulnerable, marginalized, and disadvantaged sectors.
In the 2021 Philippine Trust Index, the DSWD was among the public and private institutions most trusted by the public with a trust rating index of 88 percent.
Despite the many challenges affecting the delivery of social welfare and development programs and services amid the pandemic, the DSWD managed to sustain the trust of the public through its efficient ways of reaching out to the sectors that it serves.
In a span of 71 years, the DSWD has developed and implemented milestone programs such as the Comprehensive and Integrated Delivery of Social Services; Kapit-Bisig Laban sa Kahirapan-Comprehensive and Integrated Delivery of Social Services; Self-Employment Assistance Kaunlaran Program that later evolved into the Sustainable Livelihood Program; Supplementary Feeding Program; Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program; Social Pension Program; Yakap Bayan Program; Assistance to Individuals in Crisis Situation; Disaster Response Programs; and the Social Amelioration Program.
The Department also advocated milestone policies such as the Juvenile Justice and Welfare Act; Senior Citizens Act; Centenarian’s Act; 4Ps Act; Magna Carta for Social Workers; An Act Establishing the Social Welfare Attaché; and, the National Commission on Senior Citizens Act.
The DSWD recently revived its Performance Governance Scorecard to improve systems and processes to ensure quality service. PGS is a holistic and collaborative framework for designing, executing, monitoring, and sustaining roadmaps to reforms.
For this effort, the DSWD was recently accorded a Silver Trailblazer Award, which is given to an institution with breakthrough results; with regular progress reports on strategy; regular process coaching for lower level units; presence of rewards mechanisms; and with initiatives led by its Multi-Sectoral Governance Council partners.
In compliance with the Mandanas ruling, the agency is going through extensive reengineering of its systems, practices and processes in preparation for the full devolution of frontline programs. It developed a transition plan to effect the implementation of programs to the local government units, which includes strengthening the mechanism for the provision of technical assistance and resource augmentation to the LGUs.
The DSWD will be celebrating these milestones with a simple recognition of its employees, the Angel’s in Red Vest, who helped achieve the Department’s accomplishments. They will be recognized through the conferment of the Programs on Awards and Incentives for Service Excellence (PRAISE), which is the agency’s way of thanking exemplary staff for their hard work.
The PRAISE recognition is especially significant in giving importance to the service provided by the DSWD employees despite the health hazards posed by the pandemic. As frontliners in service delivery, many of its employees were infected with Covid-19, yet they continued to provide the much-needed services.
As the country’s need for more social welfare and development services was magnified by the pandemic and other disasters, the presence of DSWD partners and stakeholders greatly helped in fulfilling the agency’s mandate.
To show its gratitude, the DSWD will be conducting a simple online awarding activity for its partners through the Pagkilala sa Natatanging Kontribusyon sa Bayan or the PaNaTa Ko sa Bayan Awards.
Seven decades of genuine public service may have given the DSWD its sterling track record. However, the Department remains cognizant of the fact that constant learning and improvement will have to be done in order to cope and adapt to the new challenges of the new normal.
Upholding its “Maagap at Mapagkalingang Serbisyo” mantra, DSWD takes its 71-year milestone as a fresh step towards making the agency better at public service in order to sustain public trust. Thus, every DSWD Angel in Red Vest is expected to carry on the tradition of hard work and trustworthy public service that the Department has been consistently delivering to the sectors that it serves for the last seven decades.