September 9, 2013 made a history for Zamboanga City, the armed conflict between the national government and the Misuary faction heightened the alert level of the Zamboangeños. Hundreds of families lost their houses as this was burned during the incident. Amongst the affected barangays were barangay Rio Hondo, Mariki, Sta. Barbara, Sta Catalina, Kasanyangan, Talon Talon and Zone 4. Affected families flocked to the different evacuation centers during the siege. Unprepared and full of fear brought by the incident, the evacuees manage to leave their properties and livelihood in the said affected areas.

All the mentioned barangays were covered by the PantawidPamilyang Pilipino Program. And since the program runs by giving conditional cash transfer to its beneficiaries in exchange to the compliance to program conditionalies, the program management recommended the declaration for the state of calamity specifying the areas affected and program conditions requested to treat the beneficiaries as deemed compliant with. This means that since most of the barangays were greatly affected by the armed conflict, the amount of grants receive will not be based on the compliance performance of the beneficiaries due to most of the facilities were damaged and families were transferred to the different evacuation center. The force majeure was implemented for the period of September to December only as this was the time that was considered as critical as far as compliance rate is concern.

Starting January 2014, the management has issued an order to lift the force majeure policy since the situation is starting to normalize already. But there were still numbers of evacuees were left in the evacuation centers and facilities were destroyed after the conflict. This led the management in partnership with the Department of Education to look for other alternative to monitor the compliance of the beneficiaries. Special classes are being conducted by the teachers in the evacuation centers for twice a week to ensure that the children still gets the proper education. Taluksangay Elementary School accommodated children from its neighbouring evacuation center to transfer in their school to giveguarantee on the compliance to education of the children evacuees. This initiative was truly a remarkable step as it helps the program beneficiaries meet the conditionalities of the program. ###Jayson Lim Elias