BAGUIO CITY — At least 700,000 poor families nationwide stand to benefit from the P50 billion earmarked by the national government in the next five years to uplift them from their present economic conditions, Social Welfare Secretary Experanza Cabral said here.

Secretary Cabral was the guest of honor and speaker during the celebration of the 111th Independence Day held at the Baguio Convention Center with the theme “Kagitingan, Kagalingan at Kasipagan Tungo sa Tunay na Kapayapaan.”

According to her, the P50-billion budget, which is equivalent to P10 billion a year, will be exclusively dedicated for the conditional cash program of the agency in order to encourage poor families to have their children educated and given appropriate health services so that they will be productive citizens in the future once they achieve a higher degree of education.

Last year, the DSWD was able to enroll around 331,000 families in the different parts of the country to the conditional cash program, which is much higher than their 320,000 targeted poor families.

For this year, Cabral disclosed they have already identified over 365,000 poor families as additional beneficiaries of the program which brings to at least 700,000 families the beneficiaries of the conditional cash program of the national government.

Cabral revealed a 100 percent compliance of the beneficiaries to the conditions of the said program which is to bring their children to school, have their kids given enough health attention among others.

The DSWD secretary added at least 2 million children will benefit from the implementation of the program which would translate to a better literacy among the Filipino youth in the future since most of the children will now be in school and not considered as out-of-school youth.

Cabral, one of the stewards of the Arroyo administration’s pro-poor programs in the Cordillera, explained they are way ahead in the implementation of all their projects because of the urgent need for the national government to mitigate the effects of the global financial crisis, especially to the poor families in the different parts of the country.