DUMAGUETE CITY, Negros Oriental - At least 11 municipalities in Dumaguete province and a dozen in Bohol are going to benefit from government’s poverty-reduction program with funding from a $120-million grant provided by the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC).

The program, dubbed Kapit-Bisig Laban sa Kahirapan-Comprehensive and Integrated delivery of Social Services (KALAHI-CIDSS), has been implemented by the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) since 2003 and, to date, covered a total of 4,583 barangays in 200 municipalities nationwide.

Said 11 beneficiary-towns in Dumaguete, which were chosen from a total of 15 towns during a selection procedure held in the Negros Oriental provincial capital recently are Ayungon, Basay, Bindoy, Dauin, Jimalalud, Mabinay, Manjuyod, Pamplona, Sta. Catalina, Vallehermosa, and Zamboanguita.

The DSWD in Region 7 also earlier announced that 12 municipalities in Bohol province, along with Villanueva and Siquijor towns in Siquijor province have also been targeted as beneficiaries of the same program.

Said municipalities in Bohol are Danao, Bein Unido, Buenavista, Gatafe, Talibon, Ubay, San Miguel, Carmen, Pilar, Mabini, Carlos P. Garcia, and Trinidad.

Implementation of the said program will start operating in January, 2012.

Meanwhile, the program has expanded its reach to additional areas in other parts of the Visayas as well as in Luzon with chosen beneficiaries belonging to 25 percent of the country’s poorest towns with where there is a poverty incidence of at least 33 percent.

The DSWD, through its KALAHI-CIDSS, will be using the local government unit (LGU)-facilitated modality Makamasang Tugon, or Community-Driven Development-Local Planning Process in ensuring the sustainability of the program in the aforementioned beneficiary towns.

In 2010, the MCC Board, headed by US State Secretary Hillary Clinton, had agreed to approve poverty grants, including a total of $434 million for the Philippines. The Philippines was supposed to have received the grant earlier last year but the Compact proposal was deferred because previous Arroyo administration continued to flunk the all-critical corruption test. The Board then decided to wait for the winner of the presidential elections in May 2010 before moving forward with the grant proposal intended for the Philippines.