COTABATO CITY, Philippines – The national government has released a total of P1.075 billion in cash grants in 2011 to 145,421 beneficiaries of its continuing conditional cash transfer program in Region 12, and 10,719 others in Marawi City, a Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) official disclosed recently.

DSWD Region-12 Director Zorahayda Taha said the funds were released directly to some 148,660 “poorest of the poor” households in the area covered by her office last year under the anti-poverty initiative Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program (4Ps).

In Region-12, she said, the program has served 145,421 households in 32 municipalities and five cities as prescribed by the national government’s anti-poverty convergence strategy.

Region-12 covers the provinces of South Cotabato, Sultan Kudarat, Sarangani, and North Cotabato, and the cities of General Santos, Koronadal, Cotabato, Kidapawan, and Tacurong.

Taha said her office also served last year some 10,719 household-beneficiaries in Marawi City, a component of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM).

Taha said they will pursue the program’s expansion in the said areas this year based on an earlier commitment made by President Aquino, targeting to enlist 96,695 more households in 15 identified expansion areas.

Earlier, Taha said the DSWD has delisted 11,367 households from the beneficiary database of 4Ps in Region-12 due to registry errors, fraud, and other eligibility problems.

She said the delisting “is a continuing process” of “verifying” complaints regarding questions on the status or qualification of 4Ps beneficiaries in the country.

Taha said their verifications found a number of unqualified beneficiaries such as teachers, barangay (village) officials, and other government workers, among others, had been “erroneously” listed up in previous processing.

In another development, there should be a government-sanctioned multi-sector body that will monitor the operations of the Agus and Pulangi hydroelectric plants and similar entities in Mindanao, and safeguard them from undue tinkering.

This was the gist of a consensus reached lately by electric co-operatives in Mindanao in calling on President Aquino to form a participative committee to check on the plight of the two major hydropower plants amid talks that they would be sold to private corporations.

“Our position is not to sell Agus and Pulangi,” stressed Sergio Dagooc, president of the Mindanao Electric Cooperatives Association, Inc. (Amreco).

Dagooc said the proposed multi-sector committee should validate the claim of the National Grid Corporation of the Philippines (NGCP) that the hydropower plants are generating power below their capacity.

Amreco has proposed the creation of the Mindanao Power Corporation to operate Agus and Pulangi.

The Agus complex has seven facilities in Lanao del Sur and Lanao del Norte, while the Pulangi facility is in Bukidnon.

According to a published report, Mindanao Development Authority (MinDA) Chairperson Lualhati Antonino had personally checked the power-generation status of both Agus and Pulangi plants, and found out that it could generate more power.

Antonino said the two hydropower plants could generate up to 230 megawatts for Mindanao.

Mindanao’s power supply relies largely on hydroelectric power, according to the NGCP’s 2010 Transmission Development Plan.

At least 53 percent or 902 megawatts of the total 1,697-megawatt power needs of Mindanao are from hydro resources, it said.