MANILA, Philippines – Local officials in Sulu lauded the government’s conditional cash grant program for helping transform the lives of almost 70,000 indigent families in the province.

The entire Sulu province, which covers 19 towns, enjoys the Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program, a flagship program of the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) that targets to alleviate poverty in the country through investments in human capital.

“Pantawid Pamilya is instrumental not only in alleviating poverty but also in enhancing the quality of life of our constituency,” said Munib Estino, mayor of the town of Panglima Estino.

Estino said the monthly subsidy of as much as R1,400 being received by each family goes a long way in enabling them to meet day to day subsistence and attend to basic health services.

Sulu remains one of the poorest provinces in the country with 65 percent of the population shown to be living below the poverty line, way higher than the national average of 32 percent, according to Pombaen Kader, acting secretary of the DSWD in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM).

Kader said Pantawid Pamilya was started in the province in 2008 with the town of Jolo as a pilot area.

Today, the program caters to some 69,631 families in the province and around 187,000 families for the entire ARMM, which is home to the country’s poorest provinces, she said.

The government spent P10 billion in 2010 to support at least one million recipients across the country through the Pantawid Pamilya.