Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) Secretary Corazon Juliano-Soliman reminded the beneficiaries of the Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program to vote for candidates they think can continuously help improve their lives.

This is during the Secretary’s dialogue with around 2,000 parent leaders of the Pantawid Pamilya from all cities and municipalities in Cavite Province last May 4, 2016.

According to Sec. Soliman, all the politicians are now promising to continue and improve the program but the beneficiaries must carefully study their platforms.

“Dapat lahat tayo ay maging mapanuri. Sana ang nasa isip n’yo ay kinabusakan ng mga anak n’yo ang nakasalalay sa mga boto n’yo,” shared Sec. Soliman who emphasized to the beneficiaries that they have already experienced positive changes in their lives and must think about continuously achieving their dreams and not going back to their struggles.

Further, Sec. Soliman emphasized that beneficiaries must not fall victim to false promises or threats from politicians or groups, particularly on delisting beneficiaries who will not vote for them in the elections.

“Alam n’yong ang hindi n’yo lang pagsunod sa mga kundisyon ng Pantawid Pamilya ang makakapagtanggal sa inyo sa programa. ‘Wag kayong matakot na maaalis kayo sa programa kapag hindi n’yo binoto ang isang kandidato,” she said.

The Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program is a core social poverty reduction program of the national government implemented by the DSWD that invests on the health and education of zero to 18 years old children coming from qualified poor families. The beneficiaries are provided conditional cash grants in exchange for their compliance to program conditions such as 85 percent monthly class attendance of children, monthly preventive health checkups of children and pregnant women and monthly attendance to Family Development Sessions of parent-grantees.

To date, there are 317,259 household-beneficiaries of the program in the CALABARZON Region.#