Scarcity of water supplies along the shoreline of Brgy. Calumpang in Molo district of Iloilo City has been a long time problem of illegal settlers who are mostly beneficiaries of Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program.

Barangay Calumpang is part of the 25 villages in Molo district out of 180 villages in Iloilo City. It is a coastal barangay located southeast of the city wherein fish and oysters are abundant.

Planting is always a hard thing to do for coastal villagers. This has challenged the beneficiaries on how to start with their backyard gardening and Gulayan sa Barangay project considering of their limited spaces and saline soil which most of them could not plant directly from the soil.

The conduct of Family Development Session (FDS) regularly by our City Links has empowered our beneficiaries on how to do the urban and bio intensive gardening (BIG) especially by encouraging them to convert recyclable items such as plastic bottles, containers and tin cans into planting materials that requires less water consumption.

BIG is one of the thrusts and priorities of the DSWD since last year through the National Advisory Committee Resolution No. 38, series of 2016 that requires each household to have their own backyard gardening or communal garden in their barangay.

To help materialize this BIG, some CLs also tapped the help of Local Government Unit of Iloilo City through the City Agriculture’s Office (CAO) to provide beneficiaries of free vegetable seedlings such as spinach, malunggay, okra, cabbage, radish and other root crops. Aside from seedlings, beneficiaries were also given planting tools to equip them with complete gardening tools for their garden.

Parent Leader Rosene Pahilga, 42, said despite they are living almost 15 meters away from the coastline, she has able to maintain a backyard gardening in a vacant lot owned by a private company outside their house.

“I asked permission from the security guard if I could cultivate a garden within their vacant lot. Since the guard allowed me to plant there so I started cleaning the area, cover the lot with garden soil and planted it with different variety of vegetables,” she said.

Rosene said she is now earning money through selling her products every harvest time to their neighbors who are into fast food business. She added that she earned P300 pesos per harvest.

“It is an additional income to us on top of my husband’s salary that’s why my husband and children are also helping me maintain our vegetable garden during weekends as part of our family bonding”, she said.

Rosene also added that the proceeds she gets from selling is a big help for her family especially in buying their daily needs and school baon of her four children who are in elementary and high school.

She added before her children are sickly because they are not eating vegetable but now she is happy that they are all healthy because vegetable is already part of their daily meal. Apart from this, Rosene also said that she could sure that they are eating nutritious food that are pesticide- free because she is into organic farming.

“I saved some of my husband’s salary out from working as laborer because my kids are now healthy. They seldom get sick and that’s the price I got from being a hard working mother”, she said.

Rosene is part of 231 beneficiaries in Barangay Calumpang however, not all of them have their own backyard gardening considering of their area.

Putting up a communal garden for other beneficiaries without any backyard garden is one of the best solution but Rosene and her City Link find difficult looking for a vacant lot to establish their garden. This problem was brought to the attention of Punong Barangay Roberto Niño, Jr. who immediately provided lot for them. The vacant lot however, is an abandoned dump site along the road which is few meters away from the Barangay Hall.

But with the full force and cooperation of parent groups and some other barangay officials the area was cleared in just a matter of five days. Punong Barangay Niño also tasked somebody to water the plants everyday

Now, the parent groups are already earning money out of their products.

In fact, Rosene added their barangay won first prize during the Gulayan sa Bakuran contest which was initiated by the Social Marketing Unit of the Regional Project Management Office (RPMO) during the launching of the project in May last year. They received a cash prize of P 5,000 which was used to buy additional garden tools and seedlings by their group to sustain their garden.

ADVOCACY DRIVE

As a pioneer project, the DSWD6 through the Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program (4Ps) has encouraged beneficiaries to engage themselves into biointensive or uban gardening to have a sustainable food source that will help cut their expenses for their meals.

City Link Susan Escosar said they have partnered with CAO to help them materialized this project. She said the CAO has provided them with seedlings and Technical Assistance (TA) in planning particularly in organic farming.

Escolar said 14 barangays out of 25 villages in Molo district had participated in the contest last year wherein their barangay was declared champion.

“Most of them (household beneficiaries) in Calumpang are into bio intensive and urban gardening. They used plastic bottles, old cans, tires and other recyclable materials as planting materials”, she said.

Escosar said through gardening, it enhances the information of positive values for the beneficiaries such as cleanliness, cooperation, self-reliance, industry, and self-discipline.

The CL added that some barangays are now earning and manage their income from the proceeds of selling vegetables for personal and community improvements.

RICE SUBSIDY

The Department is ensuring that all Filipinos be free from hunger and poverty with the fast growing population in our country nowadays.

Thus, a rice subsidy in the amount of P 600.00 is given to Pantawid Pamilya beneficiaries as an additional cash grant on top to the usual health and educational grants they receive every month which was released every after two months thru pay-outs or Automatic Teller Machine (ATM).

Chanderlyn Rile, FDS focal said the Department is encouraging all beneficiaries to maintain vegetable garden at their backyard to make sure that nutritious food is being served on their tables to complement the rice subsidy which is a commitment of President Rodrigo Duterte during his first State of the Nation Address in 2016,

“As long as they are following the conditions of the program, our beneficiaries would get the P 600 rice subsidy per month or P 7, 200 during pay out period”, she ended.//MGC