Counseling, therapy, and education, as well as connecting clients to appropriate public or private resources. These are the main functions of a social workers.
But right now, because we are under a pandemic situation, the DSWD is forced to perform financial distribution which is not their greatest asset.
Last night, at Barangay Donya Imelda, Quezon City, they made 1,700 recipients line up to get their share of the Social Amelioration Fund. Some got theirs as late as 8pm.
So we have employees who learn their functions on the job, instead of being prepared academically for it.
I think it should be a crime to let people line up for benefits in this manner. The DILG and the DSWD must come up with more humane structures and processes in dispensing benefits.
According to the academic description of social services, meaning for the PUBLIC, these "aim to create more effective organizations, build stronger communities, and promote equality and opportunity."
In lining up for 6 hours or more to get cash good for a month's existence, will people become stronger? Will they help make the DSWD or DILG more effective organizations? Are women considered at all as equal beneficiaries? I have seen wives and mothers who had to line up to get their share.
Actually, each barangay has PUROK LEADERS who should know every Juana and Juan in their areas, whether or not they eat one or three times a day. And so I am wondering why it takes so long a time for DSWD to determine who the qualified recipients of the SAF are.
Besides, if a person is already dying of hunger and asking for help, should he/she be denied assistance just because their name is not in list? These times are emergency times and so we must be able to act quickly to attend to hunger and thirst, primarily. By the way, it is a good thing that we only have two seasons to deal with, wet and dry, while abroad poor people have to deal with four, the worst of which is winter. Ergo, our folks do not have to line up under cold weather at all except when the rainy season, by which they have to deal with floods and wet clothes.
Before the next distribution is done, I believe a new protocol has to be set up in order to have a more humane, non-insulting, non-discriminating method of releasing the funds. Let us ask the President to assign someone or a group to undertake it, people with high moral values that will pinch a single centavo from it but make sure that every recipient is happy having received their share.
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