The Department of Agrarian Reform asks to include the ARBs as recipients of the government’s medical assistance.
The Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) sought help from President Marcos to include the agrarian reform beneficiaries (ARBs) as recipients of the Department of Health (DOH) medical assistance for indigent patients (MAIP) program.
MAIP provides medical assistance for indigent patients seeking consultation, rehabilitation, examination, or confinement in government hospitals.
DAR Secretary Conrado Estrella III said that the program is under Marcos’s 9-point priority areas identified by the DAR in response to the call of the President to continue the agrarian reform program and focus on the needs of the farmers nationwide.
On the DAR’s website, Estrella said “aside from providing solutions to the problems in the security of land tenure, agrarian justice delivery, and provision of support services, we are also taking into consideration the other burdens being carried by the ARBs.”
Estrella said the DAR needs to address the medical concerns of the ARB’s members since most of the members belong to the marginalized sector of society.
“Farmers usually resort to borrowing money each time one of their family members get sick. Comprehensive support from the DAR and other national agencies is required to ease this kind of burden that the farmers are carrying,” he noted.
Aside from producing food for Filipino family, farmers are also a rich source of income opportunities for small and big entrepreneurs in the market because of the agricultural products they produce. However, farmers can’t get their families out of poverty and are still poor because of the debt incurred.
Tags: #DAR, #ARBs