CABANATUAN CITY—Some 478 families in this city’s informal waste sector (IWS) have benefited from the city government’s social-services program for the poor and marginalized. The IWS comprises small-income families whose means of living is collecting waste from households and dumps, and selling them to junk shops. “Our caring government, headed by Mayor Jay Vergara, provided us PhilHealth cards,” said Emily Oliva, the president of the 478-strong Association of Recyclers of Cabantuan City (ARCC), adding that “the card entitles the holder to free medicine and hospitalization.”
Through its so-called Conditional-Cash Transfer, or Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program, the government also provided the ARCC members financial assistance to defray the cost of their pressing and immediate needs, Oliva said. As of now, the ARCC members are undergoing training on alternative livelihood to enable them to earn extra income and, thus, improve the quality of their lives, City Administrator Roy Balagtas said. The training program is administered by the Solid Waste Management Association of the Philippines, in cooperation with the city government and other concerned government and private development agencies. “That training on alternative livelihood has come at a very opportune time,” Balagtas said. The city government, he said, plans to develop the city’s recently closed dump into an ecopark, funded by a P12.5-million grant from the World Bank. If the plan materializes, this would mean loss of job for some ARCC members, who depend on the dump for their main source of livelihood.
“The affected ARCC members should not worry; the alternative livelihood on which they are now being trained would give them a fallback,” Balagtas said.
ARCC members who are now undergoing training on doormat-making, urban gardening, strawberry farming, construction works, basic computer and other alternative livelihood are expected to become microentrepreneurs, which would give their families better income and, consequently, better quality of life.