President Marcos has justified the need for the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) to have more employees, saying its workforce is actually outnumbered given the endless distress calls in the country.

Marcos cited in his speech at the agency's 73rd founding anniversary on Friday, Jan. 12, the current state of the department in terms of workforce, saying it has too much in its plate but has too few plantilla positions.

"[O]ne DSWD worker serves about one thousand clients. This is one agency that has too much on its plate with too few plantilla positions," he said.

He noted that DSWD has been at the "state of being outnumbered but never outfought" which, according to him, is a DWSD tradition that was taken from the military.

The President stressed there are already 37,000 DSWD employees around the country but it is still not enough.

"[I]t is absolutely necessary that we have that many. Parang sasabihin, baka masyado nang marami. Kulang pa nga ‘yan (They might say it is already too much but that is still not enough)," Marcos said.

The Chief Executive explained that it is necessary to have enough workforce in every regional office as these need to be a central office when a disaster hits.

"[D]ahil kapag tinamaan ng disaster ang isang lugar, yung regional office ninyo, yung local office ninyo, nagiging central office ‘yan (Because when a place is hit by a disaster, your regional, your local office becomes a central office)," he said.

"Kaya’t kailangan kaya niyang gampanan ang mga katungkulan ng isang central office para matulungan yung area kung saan tinamaan ng disaster (So it needs to perform the roles of a central office to help the disaster-hit area)," he added.

He further said that DSWD employees are the country’s social welfare forces, who need to be "always on red alert in a country where distress calls from disaster victims and disadvantaged sectors never end."

In his speech, he also underscored the role of the central office, labeling it as the "headquarters of our war against poverty."

"To call this place just a central office is an underestimation of the critical work that you do and undervalues the great service that you have done for our people. More than that, here is the place, the headquarters of our war against poverty,"he said.

"It is the command center of the DSWD’s disaster response, the mission control of our community development drive, and it may be the compassion central that dispenses help to the needy," he added.

With the DSWD being at the forefront of the government welfare services, Marcos said Congress increased its 2024 budget to P245 billion, from last year’s P196.5 billion.

As a result, in the Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program (4Ps) and Senior Pension alone, the agency will be running a payroll operation bigger than that of the government.

The 4Ps has received an allocation of P106 billion for the benefit of more than four million Filipinos families. It is in addition to the P49.8 billion for the social pension of 4.085 million seniors including the incentives for super-seniors, and centenarians.

DSWD’s food catering operations, which will serve hot meals to 2.027 million preschool children in different communities, has P4.1 billion allocation.

And to address hunger, the agency is carrying out a food stamps program providing P3,000 each month to 50,000 families.

Marcos said the increasing needs of poor families and the vulnerable sector also meant an expanded mandate of the DSWD, which prompted Congress to give more resources to the agency.

He further said that DSWD programs have never been regarded as a "hand-out" but a "hand up, designed to help people pull themselves up" from helpless situations.

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