TWELVE SUGAR migrants have received PHP10,000 each as livelihood assistance from the Antique provincial government on Tuesday.
Antique Governor Rhodora J. Cadiao said in an interview that the livelihood assistance was given to help poor sugar migrants who came home from Negros Occidental during the coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19) lockdown.
“I urge you sugar migrants to manage well the amount given you so that you would have a livelihood to sustain you,” the governor said.
She said she knows how sugar migrants suffer due to poverty that is why the Sacada Desk or Sugar Migrant Desk was created by the provincial government so their concerns will be attended to.
Randy Ardeño, who is in charge of the Sacada Desk, said in a later interview that the amount of PHP10,000 is given to each sugar migrant so they would have something to start up for their livelihood.
“They could use the money in whatever livelihood project they would want to engage in,” he said.
Sugar migrant Aurelio Berdin, 67, and one of the beneficiaries said he intends to buy a swine to raise.
“I am no longer physically strong in order to work in the sugar fields of Negros Occidental,” he said.
He said that he wants to engage in a piggery project in his hometown in Laua-an.
“The 12 twelve sugar migrants who received the livelihood assistance today (Tuesday) belong already to the last batch of beneficiaries for this year,” Ardeño said.
He said that every year the provincial government since 2015 provided livelihood assistance to 120 sugar migrants in the province.(By Annabel Consuelo Petinglay)
