MANILA – A total of 19 former rebels who surrendered in Antique last year received livelihood settlement grants from the government.
Each of the returnees received PHP20,000, which will be used to finance their proposed projects, such as livestock production, merchandising, and fishing, the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) said in a news release on Wednesday.
It said these projects were assessed by its Central Office and provided with a corresponding budget through the Enhanced Comprehensive Local Integration Program (E-CLIP) under Executive Order (EO) 70, series of 2018.
President Rodrigo Duterte signed EO 70 in December 2018 to institutionalize a whole-of-nation approach in addressing the local communist armed conflict.
"(The E-CLIP) is designed to encourage those within the armed groups to leave the armed struggle and lead normal lives by accessing them to government programs and services to enable them to start anew," the department said.
The DSWD is one of the government agencies that make up the Regional Task Forces on Ending Local Communist Armed Conflict (RTF-ELCAC), which aim to provide social protection services to rebel returnees as envisioned under EO 70. (PR)
