By Perla Lena/PNA
ILOILO CITY — Seven out of the 30 community volunteer-nominees for the 5th Regional Bayani Ka! Awards were recognized by the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) through its Kapitbisig Laban sa Kahirapan: Comprehensive and Integrated Delivery of Social Services (Kalahi: CIDSS) program on Friday.
With the theme, “Bahandi Bayani Ka!, the award ceremony served as venue for one of the government’s poverty alleviation programs to honor volunteers who have been working on the ground to ensure its success.
“Bahandi” is Hiligaynon for “wealth”.
DSWD Assistant Secretary for Promotive Operations and Programs Group Rhea B. Peñaflor, in her message, said the community volunteers are the “wealth” of Kalahi.
“Without the volunteers, we will not be able to implement the programs. We will not be able to uplift the lives of our fellow Filipinos who are poor, who are vulnerable, who are disadvantaged sectors of the community,” Peñaflor said.
The DSWD official, who hails from Iloilo, also shared her experience of being a volunteer starting at an early age.
“We are able to inspire and make people feel better about themselves, dignify themselves and then they also dignify others and in turn, because they have a good well-being, they do want also to step up, study and they don’t want to be poor,” she added.
The winners who received a cash prize of PHP5,000 and a plaque were the barangay sub-project management committees of Inagdangan Sur, Zarraga Iloilo for improved local governance; Barangay Inayawan, Libertad, Antique for the elderly; Barangay Catungan-Bugarot, San Jose, Antique for gender and development; Barangay Alimodias, Miagao, Iloilo for environment protection; Barangay Dacal, San Enrique, Iloilo for Indigenous Peoples’ Welfare; Barangay Maspasan, Calinog for persons with disability; and Barangay Bo. Calinog Farmers Association of Calinog, Iloilo for sustained community volunteer group.
Other awardees were Ferdinand C. Selloriquez for improved local governance; Leonoro Roberto Jr., representing the elderly; Gemma T. Chicano, gender and development; Ramonito S. Sabug, environment protection; Elna Mallo, Indigenous Peoples’ welfare; Ma. Lea M. Carillo, persons with disability; and Ma. Alma Laredo representing the sustained community volunteer group.
Sabug, president of the Alimodias Upland Farmers Association, said they began with only 54 members in 2012. Currently, their membership is 236 or 95 percent of the village population.
The group first engaged in a coffee planting project of the Department of Agriculture and was later tapped by the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) for its various programs, such as the Integrated Social Forestry, National Greening Program, and the Forest and Climate Change Protection Project.
While they attend to their almost 800 hectares of land in the upland barangay, members of the association also work in reforestation projects in nearby San Joaquin and Igbaras covering 250 and 150 hectares, respectively.
They also engage in various income-generating and livelihood projects, such as piggery and goat raising.
The same association members also composed the sub-project management committee that implemented the farm-to-market road project under the Kalahi program.
“We plan to convert into a cooperative. We hope to manage the drop-off center (bagsakan) in our town,” Sabug shared.
The regional winners will automatically represent Western Visayas in the national Bayani Ka! awards.
