Hard-up Pinoys undergo ordeal in obtaining ayuda

Daily Tribune’s Ilocos Norte correspondent set out to experience firsthand the ordeal of Filipinos who seek financial aid or ayuda from the government to ease their household predicament, and this is his story.

On 13 November, I set out to experience for myself how difficult it can be to seek assistance at the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) office in Ilocos Norte.

The day began with my body being folded into a hot, jolting tricycle and continued through hours of waiting, as families carried the weight of illness, worry, and the cost of getting help.

I’m an average-sized man, but there wasn’t room to sit upright. I had to bow my head and fold my body into the cramped space. The tricycle rattled over the road, every bump jolting through me. Heat gathered around us. I shifted, but there was nowhere to stretch out.

I wanted to experience for myself how hard it is to seek assistance. The ride was my first lesson: getting to the office could already be uncomfortable, tiring, and costly even before the excruciating wait.

At the DSWD office in Ilocos Norte, people had come seeking medical, burial, food and other financial assistance.

DSWD provides social welfare support, including aid for people facing illness and other hardships. At the provincial office, staff receive applicants, review their documents, and assess their cases. But the extent of their assistance depends on the staff and resources available, and on this day, demand was unusually high.

People filled available chairs, sat on the stairs, leaned against posts and walls and waited in hallways. Some had to find their own patch of shade to shield themselves from the blazing afternoon sun.

I arrived around 12:15 p.m. Some people had been there since 6 a.m., when the guard began handing out numbers. The office opens at 8 a.m. Thirty-five people came ahead of me, with another 40 priority cases in the queue.

I had intentionally skipped breakfast and lunch. I wanted to feel some part of the discomfort of waiting for help, hungry and tired.

But I knew my experience was limited. I could leave when I was done. The people around me were dealing with illnesses, bills, children to care for, and the uncertainty of whether the assistance they sought would be enough.

A 57-year-old mother, who asked not to be identified, had come to seek assistance for her husband, now a senior citizen. She said asking for help was hard in itself: the travel, the process and all the steps she had to complete. But she added, “This is the Philippines we live in.” For now, she had to make the trip and endure the wait.

Abraham Mamala, 61, a farmer from Dingras, was seeking medical assistance to help cover maintenance needs. His children send money when they can, he said, but it still does not stretch far enough.

“Mas mabuti nang magtiyaga” (Better to be patient), he said.

Everything costs more, Mamala explained: farm supplies, especially fertilizer. Government subsidies help, but do not cover enough. Getting to the office adds to the expense. A jeepney ride can take nearly two hours. Sometimes he and his sister-in-law hitch a ride and make it in about an hour. At other times they travel by tricycle, paying around P300 for fare or gasoline.

The journey is another bill for people already trying to cover food, medicine and household expenses.

Spend to get aid

Jobelyn Ceredon, 33, said her family had spent about P500 to come for assistance because of her father’s illness. It was their third visit. Her family had faced dozens of medicines and the aftermath of accidents. When her child was injured, she had to ask a neighbor to look after the child while she cared for her sick father at home.

“Even if we have nothing, I just hope no one gets sick,” she said. Even when you have nothing, you just hope no one gets sick.

Ceredon married at 18 and has four daughters. She works in a canteen, and one of her children is a working student who helps with expenses. As she described the family’s situation, her words carried the weariness of someone trying to keep several needs from becoming a crisis at once.

Around us, people kept waiting. Some sat quietly, eyes fixed on the floor or the number slips in their hands. Others talked with strangers, comparing journeys and explaining why they had come. The room filled with the scrape of monobloc chairs, the squeak of steel chairs and the steady murmur of lives shared in fragments: a family member’s accident, a sickness, medicine that had to be bought, a trip that had to be made.

For people paid by the day, a long wait can mean losing half a day’s wages, sometimes a full day. A return visit may mean losing more. Others have to find a neighbor or friend to watch over a sick or injured relative — or someone in the hospital — while they go to seek help.

Students were there, too, seeking financial assistance for their education. In conversation, people mentioned their congressmen and mayors as the officials who had endorsed them. They held on to that referral as they waited, hoping it would help them reach the support they needed.

Some eyes looked heavy from years of worry; others, from a sleepless night.

Then my number was called.

Full day’s labor

For the first time in nearly four hours, I sat inside the office, in an air-conditioned room with other people seeking help. Outside, the afternoon sun fell across the hallway and stairway where people had been making do with whatever space they could find. Inside, the conversations continued — quiet accounts of illness, accidents, expenses and long trips.

At 4:35 p.m., I was near the front of the line. At 5:10 p.m., I was done.

Afterward, I spoke with Ms. DV Winona G. Ablog, SWAD Leader for the Province of Ilocos Norte under DSWD Field Office 1. She acknowledged the strain on clients and the long waits. Some, she said, arrive at 6 a.m. and do not finish until 2 or 3 in the afternoon.

Ablog explained that the office was short-staffed that day because many employees were assigned to an off-site payout. The crowd was also larger than usual. The office typically serves an average of 130 to 150 clients a day, she said, but lately the number had reached around 220. The office was accepting walk-ins as well as referrals, including people who chose to stay and wait.