At least 260 Bajau families are now beneficiaries of the Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program through the Modified Conditional Cash Transfer for Homeless Street Families (MCCT-HSF). The said Bajaus are from Batangas City and Balayan (Batangas) and Lucena City (Quezon).

The MCCT-HSF covers homeless street families who are not beneficiaries of the regular Pantawid Pamilya program since they were not included in the Listahanan assessment of poor households in 2009 because of their being homeless. This also includes families who occupy private and public facilities not intended for human habitation such as cemeteries, slums, railway tracks, under the bridge and along shorelines.

Besides the provision of better access to health and educational services, the said families will also be enabled to have more stable and safer dwelling places through the interventions to be provided by the DSWD.

Upon assessment and social preparation, the Bajau families who decide to return to their province of origin will be provided core shelter assistance. On the other hand, families who have no province to return to but decide to move to a safer residence will be provided rent subsidy for a total of six months.

Like the regular Pantawid Pamilya, family-beneficiaries will receive Php500 per month as health grant and Php300 per child per month as education grant following the conditions set by the program including preventive health checkup, school attendance of children and attendance to family development sessions.

In addition to the above-mentioned conditions, a child’s engagement in any form of hazardous occupation is prohibited and will be grounds for the cancellation of the household’s health grant.

The Bajau families will also benefit from job and livelihood opportunities through DSWD’s Sustainable Livelihood Program and other support services such as functional literacy for adults, psychosocial counseling and family enrichment activities among others.

Further, the said families will be mainstreamed to the regular Pantawid Pamilya program after one year of implementation. Families who are uncooperative to the DSWD case workers’ treatment plan may be terminated from the program.

At least 40 more Bajau families from Batangas City and Balayan, Batangas are still for registration to the said program.from reports of EBermejo***