Eight municipalities from Iloilo and Capiz provinces have qualified for the Makamasang Tugon program, a sequel of the Kapitbisig Laban sa Kahirapan: Comprehensive and Integrated Delivery of Social Services (KALAHI: CIDSS) project of the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD).
The qualified municipalities were chosen from the 21 KALAHI: CIDSS recipient local government units (LGUs) all over the region.
The Makamasang Tugon will serve as incentive to municipalities where the sub-projects of the KALAHI: CIDSS were already completed, properly implemented and have served its purpose of empowering the community.
The municipalities include Carles, Concepcion, San Dionisio, Ajuy, Barotac Viejo, Maasin and Janiuay, all in Iloilo province and Jamindan in Capiz
“All the barangays within that municipalities is our target,” DSWD assistant regional director Joel Galicia said.
Each barangay is entitled to a P500,000 budget higher than the P300,000 fund that was provided to recipient barangays under the KALAHI: CIDSS cycle.
The qualified LGUs have already come out with their own strategy on how to implement the project based on the community empowerment cycle of the KALAHI: CIDSS, Galicia said.
“This is a pilot-test project. After the one-year implementation, we will document the process of each municipality together with the Department of Interior and Local Government (DILG) and the World Bank and the result will be finalized and manualized to be adopted by other LGUs later on,” he explained.