WHEREAS, Republic Act (RA) No. 8425, or the "Social Reform and Poverty Alleviation Act," declares it a policy of the State to adopt an area-based, sectoral and focused intervention to poverty alleviation, wherein every poor Filipino family shall be empowered to meet its minimum basic needs of health, food and nutrition, water and environmental sanitation, income security, shelter and decent housing, peace and order, education and functional literacy, participation in governance, and family care and psycho-social integrity;

WHEREAS, RA No. 8425 created the National Anti-Poverty Commission (NAPC), which shall, among others, coordinate with different national and local government agencies and the private sector to assure full implementation of all social reform and poverty alleviation programs;

WHEREAS, AmBisyon Natin 2040 envisions that by the year 2040, the Philippines shall be a prosperous, predominantly middle class society where no one is poor and those in public service are watching out for the less fortunate, protecting their rights, and helping them out of poverty, instead of taking public funds and keeping it for themselves;

WHEREAS, the NAPC has rolled out the Sambayanihan: Serbisyong Sambayanan (Sambayanihan), a program intended to carry out the directive of the President to reduce poverty incidence in the country by 7.6% by year 2022;

WHEREAS, on 07 September 2018, the NAPC launched its Sambayanihan Caravan, a program where the frontline support and basic social services of various national government agencies will be delivered directly to our fellow Filipinos, especially those in the poorest communities; and

WHEREAS, the Sambayanihan, its Caravan and other component programs seek to provide a venue for inter-agency collaboration at the provincial and municipal levels to address the root causes of poverty;

NOW, THEREFORE, to ensure a "whole-of-government" approach to poverty alleviation and the widest deployment of basic social services to our poorest communities, all government agencies and instrumentalities, including government- owned or -controlled corporations, are hereby directed to support, participate and provide the necessary assistance, consistent with their respective mandates, to the NAPC in the implementation of the Sambayanihan, its Caravan and component programs, subject to existing laws, rules and issuances, including budgetary policies and regulations.

This Circular shall take effect immediately.

DONE, in the City of Manila, this 6th day of March in the year of Our Lord, Two Thousand and Nineteen.

 

By authority of the President:      (SGD.) SALVADOR C. MEDIALDEA   Executive Secretary