BOAC, Marinduque- Hosted by the Marinduque State College (MSC), the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) MIMAROPA held the 4th Listahanan Antipoverty Symposium yesterday in commemoration of October 17 United Nations (UN) International Day for Eradication of Extreme Hunger and Poverty.

This year’s theme, ‘Answering the Call of October 17 to end poverty: A path toward peaceful and inclusive societies.’

The antipoverty symposium is parallel to the 30th anniversary of the UN’s call to action in the eradication of extreme hunger and poverty along with the Listahanan initiatives in increasing the awareness of the MIMAROPAns on the regional profile of the poor, providing all stakeholders a solid and evidenced-based statistics based on the nationwide household assessment results.

According to Listahanan 2015 database from the 584,562 households assessed and validated regionwide, 221,324 or 37.9 percent are identified poor.

A total of 55,363 poor households were identified in Oriental Mindoro; 39,182 in Occidental Mindoro; 14,051 in Marinduque; 20,777 in Romblon; and 91,951 in Palawan.

“This annual event of the department is one of the actions to show its commitment to the international community in achieving the eradication of hunger and poverty,” said Ernie H. Jarabejo.

This provides an avenue to all stakeholders to discuss various initiatives developed and implemented by their own institutions which are biased to the identified poor in Listahanan particularly the vulnerable, disadvantaged communities, sectors, families and individuals.

One highlight of the event is the presentation of the Ambisyon Natin 2040 by the National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA)- a collective long-term vision and aspirations of the Filipino people for themselves and for the country for the next 25 years. It describes the kind of life that people want to live, as well as how the country will look like by 2040.

Moreover, considering that the province of Marinduque is the Butterfly Capital of the Philippines, Marinduque State College has presented a case study dubbed as Pera Mula Sa Paruparo: The Pro-poor and Pro-Environment Butterfly Livelihood. The case study focused on providing livelihood and employment to the communities through butterfly farming.

The DSWD has presented its experience and gains in the implementation of the Sustainable Livelihood Program (SLP) in the grass root communities. SLP aims to improve the socio-economic status of poor families by creating more employment and entrepreneurial opportunities.

For this year, SLP has served 553 individuals in Marinduque for microenterprise development and employment facilitation with Php15 million fund.

The event was participated by various national and local government agencies, civil society organizations and MSC social work students. ###