[Philippines] It will guide City Hall, NGOs which barangays to prioritize

from The Sun Star

By Linette C. Ramos
Sun.Star Staff Reporter

Poverty-stricken barangays can expect to get help from nongovernment organizations (NGOs) and the local government faster with the creation of the Cebu City Poverty Map.

Although the map has yet to be completed, some NGOs have already identified the barangays that need poverty alleviation projects the most using the mapping project.

Barangays with the highest incidence of malnutrition, those without access to communal water system and toilet facilities and those with low Local Development Fund allocation have already been identified and included in the map.

Mercedita Coca, Peace and Equity Foundation (PEF) program officer, said that once completed, the map will help identify strategic programs and the priority areas for poverty reduction projects.

“This will guide all stakeholders on what areas should be prioritized since it will show them the real situation in the area.
Makita gyud asa ang angay i-prioritize, kung asa gyud ang mga pobre,” she said.

In the area of malnutrition, four barangays appeared as red-coded in the map presented by Coca during the People’s Congress on Poverty Reduction at the University of San Carlos (USC) cultural center yesterday.

Some 35 urban poor associations and four major coalitions of NGOs and people’s organizations in Metro Cebu attended.
Using records provided by City Hall, PEF identified Barangay Lusaran as highest priority for intervention programs that will address malnutrition.

Lusaran has the highest malnutrition incidence rate at 30.58 percent.

Ermita ranked second with 27.25 percent, followed by Tejero and Buhisan with 25.36 percent and 24.57 percent, respectively.

Barangays Babag, Tap-tap, Pit-os, Pamutan and Tisa were also identified as priority areas that need to be provided with a communal water system.

In Babag, 96 percent of the residents still rely on springs and open sources of water while only four percent have connections to water pipes.

Six mountain barangays were also identified as top priority for toilet facilities. The PEF study showed that in Barangay Taptap, 47.83 percent of the households still have no access to toilet facilities.

The mapping project was conceptualized “as a strategy that will establish a sound basis for and identify multi-stakeholder partnership to support a sustainable program on poverty alleviation.”

Key indicators such as demographics and data on health, housing and sanitation, education, livelihood and employment and environmental conditions were used.

PEF has so far mapped out indicators in sanitation, education and health.

Once completed, the map will have more specific features and can show the exact location of households that need interventions in specific indicators, Coca said.

And since it is a color-coded map, the barangays will be identified as top priority or least priority by their colors.

The map will also show the barangays that have very low allocation for projects that will address the basic needs of their constituents.

PEF already found that Barangay Lorega allocated only 1.03 percent of their Internal Revenue Allotment for Local Development Fund (LDF), which is supposed to finance basic services.

Other barangays identified as priority areas for LDF allocation are Sambag 2, which allocated only 1.93 percent, Pahina Central with only 2.83 percent, Talamban with only 4.15 percent, Capitol Site, T. Padilla and Suba with at least 5 percent each.

The congress was held yesterday to engage civil society groups, church, academe, government line agencies and the business sector were invited to attend the congress to help identify the interventions and strategies that would be implemented.