Advocating Sexual and Reproductive Health & Rights (SRHR) Beyond Religious Divide: DSWD’s Social Protection Programs for Poor Women & Families

DSWD SECRETARY JUDY M. TAGUIWALO

Good morning, sisters and comrades in the struggle for women’s rights and welfare!

Thank you for inviting me today and making me part of this gathering of sexual and reproductive health and rights advocates.

I have been asked to share with you the programs of the DSWD when it comes to social protection programs for poor women and families.

The DSWD’s programs are meant for poor Filipinos, men and women alike, but based on our records, more women actually access the programs because they are more active in working to access them.

Through its Protective Services Program, the DSWD offers various types of assistance to those in need; among the services is the Assistance to Individuals in Crisis Situations (AICS). Under the AICS in the Crisis Intervention Unit (CIU), the DSWD provides medical, educational, burial and transportation assistance to persons/families in crisis situations, particularly to those who belong to the informal sector and other poor, marginalized, vulnerable, and disadvantaged sectors.

From January to June 2016, the CIU offices of the DSWD Central Office were able to provide assistance to a total of 17,316 citizens who sought financial help for their respective emergency concerns. Of this number, 9,054 beneficiaries asked for medical assistance, and the Central Office released a total of P27,214,803.01 from January to June 2016.

As the lead government agency in social protection, the DSWD aims to give assistance to indigent and vulnerable Filipinos to help them cope during crisis situations, including situations when they need assistance for hospital and medical needs. The department, however, can only do so much to help Filipinos in this area through its programs. We are now looking into possibilities to coordinate with other concerned government agencies on how we can improve the provision of healthcare to the poor. We are also planning ways to make the process of accessing services easier for DSWD clients: we want to make the processing of documents easier and faster by cutting red tape as directed by Pres. Duterte himself. We have also begun to implement information drives on this same concern.

Persons Living with HIV
The DSWD also provided assistance to 88 Persons Living with HIV-AIDs (PLHIV) and the assistance amounted to a total of 327,615.72. Two PLHIV clients aged between 0-13 – one male, one female – were given assistance; 35 PLHIV clients aged between 18-29 (27 male, 8 female) were also assisted; as well as 40 others (aged 30-44; 33 male, 7 female). Ten PLHIV aged between 45 to 59 (5 male, 5 female) also received help. One male PHLIV aged between 60 to70 years old was also assisted.

MORE WOMEN SOUGHT HELP THAN MEN
Across all categories of assistance, more women than men sought assistance. Of the 310,477 total number of clients, 215, 444 were women. The only category of assistance sought wherein there were more men clients was the subcategory of medical assistance to PLHIV.

More women sought medical assistance (92,896) than men (27,703); education assistance (59,523 against 27,703); transportation assistance (2,784 compared to 1,171).
Definitely women carry the heavier burden when it comes to seeking assistance for their families, particularly for medical and educational needs.

REHABILITATION ASSISTANCE
I would like to share the DSWD and the Duterte administration’s efforts to address the country’s drug problem.
Our country’s drug problem has to be addressed through interventions by targeting the root causes: poverty caused by lack of social support for many Filipinos, corruption in various levels in the various agencies of government, and lack of sustainable, productive employment for the poor,” she said. “The three Pillars of this program for drug pushers/users are meant to pave the way towards lasting solutions to the drug problem.

Under the Pillar III, the Cash for Work (CFW) under the Assistance to Communities in Need as well as the Assistance to Individuals in Crisis Situations (AICS)–components of the Protective Services, and the Sustainable Livelihood Program (SLP) are recommended to be funded to provide assistance to the recovering drug dependents along with other psychosocial programs of the Department and other programs of other agencies.

There are three proposed Pillars of Interventions:

Pillar I: A Center-Based Rehabilitation Program will be led by the Department of Health (DOH) as the lead agency along with the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA), National Bureau of Investigation (NBI), PNP and DILG, the Dangerous Drugs Board (DDB) in the creation of a data base/profile of the surrenderers. The screening and referral for appropriate services to include but not limited to drug testing, treatment and rehabilitation, mental health facility/medical center/hospital and provision of support i.e. education, skills training, job opportunities, psycho-social, medical, etc. Surrenderers found to be heavily using prohibited drugs are the primary target of the center-based drug rehabilitation component.

Pillar II: The Community Based Rehabilitation Pillar will be led by the Department of the Interior and Local Government and Ugnayan ng Barangay at Simbahan (UBAS) along with other line agencies such as the PNP, the DSWD, the Technical and Skills Development Authority (TESDA), the DILG and the Department of Health. The objective of this Pillar is to design a community-based and holistic recovery and rehabilitation programs to make the community (barangay level) a rehabilitation center for drug user/pusher surrenderers.

Pillar III: The Aftercare, Reintegration and Transformation Support for Recovering Drug Dependents will be led by the DSWD with the Bureau of Jail Management and Penology (BJMP), Commission on Higher Education (CHED), the Department of Agriculture (DA), the Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR), Department of Education (DepEd), Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR), the DILG, the DOH, DOJ-Parole and Probation Administration, the Dept. of Trade and Industry (DTI), the Dept. of Labor and Employment (DOLE), the TESDA, the National Commission for Culture and the Arts (NCCA) and the Philippine Sports Commission (PSC). These agencies will work together to provide a wide-array of aftercare services to recovering drug dependents and their families to hasten and to strengthen their rehabilitation and reintegration.

We have submitted to the Department of Budget and Management a proposal to fund the services for our assistance to recovering drug dependents for October-December 2016 and for 2017. In the meantime, I have approved the proposal of the DSWD Operation and Program Group – Protective Programs to download to the regions fund augmentation allocation for the EAICS (Emergency Assistance for Individuals in Crisis Situations) to support the implementation of Pillar III for CY 2016.

Let us work together
Dear sisters and comrades in the campaign to promote and uphold women’s rights and welfare, I would like to assure you that we at the DSWD as well as other agencies of the Duterte administration are doing our part to ensure that the President’s instructions to serve the people promptly and with compassion.

We ask you to support our programs for rehabilitation and to also commit to efforts to inform the public regarding them. We want to inform the Filipino people that there are efforts being made to address the drug problem without the use of violence and extrajudicial killing. We do not tolerate extrajudicial killings and we are all for due process, and we must strengthen our voice when it comes to promoting humane and compassionate means to end or mitigate the drug problem.

I hope all the information I shared will help all of us here in our work to promote the welfare of our people, especially our impoverished sisters. Let us all unite and support programs that aim to concretely help our people cope with poverty, restore their dignity, and help them in their struggle for economic and social independence. #