Baguio wins national award in social service

BAGUIO CITY – Baguio City clinched the “Pagkilala sa Natatanging Kontribusyon sa Bayan” (PaNata Ko sa Bayan) Gawad Listahanan award, a national honor conferred by the Department   of   Social   Welfare   and   Development   (DSWD) to outstanding local government units.

City social welfare and development officer Betty Fangasan and Ryan Mangusan, representative of Mayor Mauricio Domogan received the award consisting of a plaque and a P50,000 cash from DSWD Dinky Soliman during DSWD’s 65th founding anniversary program last Jan. 28.

Baguio bested other finalists in the city government category of the award including the cities of Cebu, Davao and Bislig.

The GawadListahanan recognizes the local government units’ performance in the implementation of the National Household Targeting System for Poverty Reduction (NHTS-PR) also known as Listahanan for providing services and assistance to the Listahanan-identified poor.

“In 2014 to 2015, Baguio City funded under its Bottom-Up Budgeting process and local funds theskills   enhancement   and   employment   of   154   youth   for   the   second   round   of   householdassessment in the city in partnership with the DSWD. As a result of the said activity, an updateddatabase of households in the city was established whereas 2,085 households were identifiedas poor,” shared Kay Ann Mapalo of the DSWD-CAR social marketing unit. 

Fangasan said the identified poor households will be beneficiaries of other programs of the city government.  “Right now, they are the recipients of our National Certificate (NC) II training project with TESDA and Baguio City School of Arts and Trades (BSCAT).”

Domogan said the award is a testimony of the how hard the city through the OCSWDO and those at the DSWD-CAR in implementing projects that uplift the welfare of the poor.

“We just did what we thought was right for the city of Baguio by choosing those projects for our constituents. This award proved that the projects were effective by providing opportunity to our constituents to be employed likewise,” Domogan said.

Other awardees of Gawad Listahanan are Iloilo Province in the provincial government category and Jaen, Nueva Ecija in the municipal government level.

Listahanan is an information management system that provides national government agencies, LGUs and other stakeholders a comprehensive list of poor families as basis for determining beneficiaries of their social protection programs and services. – A Refuerzo