Dagupan is home to the “poorest”
DAGUPAN City appears to be the home for majority of the “poorest” in the province.
Based on the records of the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD), only Dagupan out of the four cities in Pangasinan has claimants for the CTP, more popularly known as the Pantawid Pampamilya Pilipino Program (4Ps).
Irene de los Reyes, information officer of DSWD in Region 1, said during the Media in Action forum of the Pangasinan Press Club (PPC) last week that there are currently 2,342 poor household families in Dagupan that are in the list of beneficiaries of the CTP starting this year.
The beneficiary families, coming from 16 of the 31 barangays in the city, have so far received a total of P8.157 million.
De los Reyes noted that the inclusion of a local government unit in the CTP is not based on the town or city’s income classification but on “the magnitude of poor families in the area”.
The CTP is a national government program providing cash incentive to the poorest of the poor families around the country. It requires beneficiaries to comply with certain requirements relating to the education of the children in the family and health.
She explained that the inclusion of Dagupan, an independent component city in Pangasinan, was based on the survey conducted by the National Targeting System on Poverty Reduction.
The survey determined that there are more poor families in Dagupan qualified for the cash grant than in other cities of Pangasinan.
PRIDE
Lawyer Gonzalo Duque, PPC president and columnist of The PUNCH, said the inclusion of Dagupan under the CTP could be regarded as an indictment to the city, which prides itself as the center of education, trade and commerce in northern Luzon.
“We have to congratulate San Carlos, Urdaneta and Alaminos cities as they are not included in the CTP,” said Duque.
He pointed out that the city government needs to refocus its socio-economic programs and prioritize the creation of opportunities for employment in the city to lessen the city’s number of poor.
Meanwhile, the DSWD regional office also announced that there are now 44,920 household beneficiaries in Region with the majority, totalling 30,224, located in Pangasinan.
Total funds spent by the DSWD in the whole region ohas reached P540 million, with P367.6 or 68% funneled to Pangasinan.
However, Pangasinan is not being considered as the poorest province in Region 1 because of its population and land area, which are the biggest in the region.
A survey in 2009 showed that Region 1 had a poverty incidence of 17.8 percent.
La Union had the highest at 23.3 percent or 25,000; Pangasinan, 19.5 percent, 141,404; Ilocos Sur, 12.5 percent or 70,000; and Ilocos Norte, 9.2 percent, 11,000.
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