COTABATO CITY — The national government is set to grant microenterprise livelihood aid worth P15,000 to poor residents in five Bangsamoro provinces, beginning with 1,290 participants to a recent financial literacy training program, officials said Monday.
Jidday B. Lucman, speaking on behalf of the Ministry of Social Services and Development-Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao, said the Department of Social Welfare and Development’s (DSWD) Social Livelihood Program (SLP) will be implemented in cooperation with the BARMM government.
Samra S. Alik, BARMM’s regional SLP coordinator, said the P15,000 cash payout for each of the participants to the training will commence next week. “This year, our target is to empower a total of 6,508 program participants,” she said.
Initially assured of receiving this microenterprise aid are those who took part in simultaneous literacy trainings conducted last Oct. 9 to 12 in Maguindanao del Norte, Maguindanao del Sur, Basilan, and Sulu, as well as in the 63 Bangsamoro barangays spread across the towns in Cotabato in Region 12.
“The training for those in Tawi-Tawi island municipalities will commence this week,” said Ms. Lucman, noting that most of the participants are either wives of farmers and fishermen or widows.
Mayor Rolly C. Sacdalan of Midsayap town in Cotabato province, vowed to task his municipal planners to help beneficiaries of the SLP in setting up income generating projects using their P15,000 grant as capital.
For his part, Basilan Gov. Jim H. Salliman said via online Messenger that he appreciates the DSWD’s continuing socio-economic interventions, via the MSSD-BARMM, for his marginalized constituents, even as functions of the department had fully been devolved to the Bangsamoro regional government in 2019. — John Felix M. Unson
