Gladis, a young lady resident in barangay Mangas II, Alfonso, who was leading this project suddenly found a job in far and moved away. Another lady resident Rose voluntarily took over the project and we have continued processing of the remaining documents. Since some documents were misplaced AWH paid additional fees for non-registrant certificate (Negative NSO). Six of the residents including Henry whose papers had not been finished were transported to Municipal hall by AWH car on April 27. Some cases still required corrections on the baptismal certificates. Since the project still required follow up till finished, AWH gave Rose a financial assistance to cover baptismal certificate issuance, transportation, etc.
In the meantime, the barangay council has donated 3 different trans bins for segregation.
Birth Certificate Project Continued at Barangay Mangas II
AWH attended a monthly LCPC (Local Council for Protection of Children) meeting on 4/13 and learned that more than half of the birth certificates for the residents of Gulod, barangay Mangas II, Alfonso had not been issued yet. After the meeting, we asked Tess of municipal Civil Registry Office (CRO) the reasons. She explained that many had discrepancies such as misspelling of the names, wrong birth dates, etc. We retrieved 19 negative certificate of birth (document of not having birth certificate) which had been stuck in the process.
Later date we visited Mangas II and collected baptismal certificates for those 19 residents, then proceeded to CRO and checked one by one what the discrepancies are.
Some needed to correct information on baptismal, some needed to change the negative certificates which we had to pay the fees again. Some required voter’s certificates from the election office preceded by certificates of indigent issued by DSWD.
For example, Henry the recovered boy from sickness has no father (deceased). Since his family has no ID of Henry’s father (Tejero), he has to succeed mother’s last name (Mejos) as his parents were not married officially. So we paid to issue a new negative certificate with the corrections. So his name will be Henry Mejos from now on instead of Henry Tejero. It affected entire his family including his sisters and a child of one of his sisters.
Since Gladis who is one of the resident there and volunteers to handle this project ran out of transportation money, we have provided her enough fund to follow up on this issue including her husband’s papers which need to be forwarded from Samar by LBC.
In the meantime, Dindo, the electronic technician in Alfonso, wanted to volunteer by seeing our activities posted on my Facebook and helped our project in Mangas II. We picked up trash in the area with children and he spent his own money to buy snacks for the kids at his own will.
Giving Birth Certificates to Indigents
Philippine population is counted by the National Statistics Office (NSO) and it is said to be 97 million as of 2013. In the meantime, according to CIA website of The World Factbook indicates it 107.7 million as July 2014 estimate. We always wonder from where this discrepancy comes.
Many of the new residents of Gulud, barangay Mangas squatter village in Alfonso, Cavite, consisting presently of about 47 families, migrated from Western Samar to Manila and also Bacoor, Cavite about 10 years ago. Children born during these wanderings, along with some of the adults, largely have no birth certificates, which are usually required to apply for Philhealth (national health insurance).
AWH had meetings with the indigents and a young leader stepped forward to put together a written survey (name, date of birth, where born, mother, father, etc. of everyone not having a birth certificate).
Later day AWH staff visited Gulud together with Gina of Alfonso DSWD, Dr. Manzo of Alfonso Municipal Health Center, and Tess of NSO, Barangay Mangas captain and a pastor of Born Again Christian and discussed about the procedure to apply for birth certificates of about 60 indigents.
The NSO official stated that the requirements of delayed registration for birth certificates are as follows:
– NSO Negative Certification (certification of no birth certificate) P140/persons
– Baptismal
– Medical (immunization) Records
– School Records (Form 137)
– Barangay Certification
– Certificate of Indigence
(name of child, date and place of birth, name of parents)
– Voters Registration Certification
– Marriage Contract of Applicant
– Marriage Contract of Parents
– SSS Records
– Cenomar of Parents
AWH delivered an additional van load of bundled firewood and pledged to assist NSO with payment for the NSO negative certification.
Local pastors volunteered to provide birth certificates for the Brgy. Mangas II indigents for free.
As part of NSO requirements, nine children ages 0-59 months that had not yet resided at the squatter village during the September 2014 mass immunization were immunized.