There was once a woman named Arlene, who lived in a small coastal town in Polanco, Zamboanga Del Norte where the wind played with the tree leaves and the flowers bloomed like nature’s own art work. From a young age, Arlene was known for her beauty. She was one of the most beautiful Dalagang Pilipina in their old town with thick and luscious hair that flows like water. Her beauty and hair became her signature and her pride.

To others, it was beauty. To her, it was memory.

Her mother used to comb her hair slowly every evening, her fingers careful and reverent. “This,” she would whisper, “is your crowning glory.”

As Arlene grew, life twisted and turned like the strands she tied back each morning. As with all other girls in their community, if one cannot finish her education, the next course of action is to get married. And so she did. But living in a 3^rd class municipality left her with very little opportunity. For once, her beauty meant nothing anymore. Her concern then is how to survive daily life.

With hope in her heart, she left her town, moved to Manila to work as a laundry worker. For some time, this supported her growing family. Back then, she thought that life couldn’t get any worse since she was feeling way sunken in her impoverished life already. But life, just like our hair, could get real messy. In 2009, her husband’s health condition worsen to the point where he could not go to work anymore even if he wanted to. Soon, Arlene became a Solo Parent to 4 children.

In 2013, Arlene finally saw a ray of hope especially from the government. They were registered to the Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program (4Ps), a poverty-alleviation program implemented by the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD). Being a Solo Parent, this meant a lot for Arlene as she was really pushing herself to provide for the daily necessities, education, and health of that she tries to pull together like a hair tie.

The program helped Arlene in ensuring that her children are provided with school supplies, projects, fare, and other academic miscellaneous. In coordination with the Department of Education, the DSWD ensures that children beneficiaries under the 4Ps program reach at least 85% attendance rate. On the other hand, the Department also coordinates with the Department of Health in ensuring that health check-ups are facilitated to 4Ps beneficiaries.

This catapulted the beautiful journey of Arlene towards success.

As a 4Ps beneficiary, the social worker assigned to each family assesses the beneficiary for appropriate intervention that would help steer their journey towards the goal of self-sufficiency. Seeing that Arlene’s strength is on making others feel beautiful, the social worker endorsed her to a hairdressing training funded by the Sustainable Livelihood Program (SLP). This gave her the basic knowledge in hair make-over which soon became her bread and butter. After the training, she was given 5,000 pesos worth of starter kit to start a livelihood project on hairdressing.

Soon after, in 2020, Arlene’s Hair and Nail Salon came to life.

With it came the birthing pains of starting a business. One must ensure that bills are paid monthly, rental for business space are settled, and staffs are compensated. Back then, it was just herself running the business alone managing both the operation and financial management. She used the learning she gained from the Family Development Session (FDS), particularly the session on financial literacy, as her guide on financial management of the business. Luckily, clients patronized her good service. Then she already afforded to hire a nail technician (manicurista) and an all-around assistant for the salon.

Two years after, she was able to register the salon as an official business establishment recognized by the government.

Seeing its potential, the 4Ps program, through the Enhanced Support Service Intervention (ESSI) – Cash Assistance Grant (CAG) supported Arlene’s Hair and Nail Salon by providing augmentation on equipment, treatments, and other hair care tools worth 15,000 pesos.

The CAG was received on October 18, 2024.

As per Arlene, she is now confident to run the business as it already stood the test of time.

“Kailangan mo din maging hands on talaga. Sa ngayon, naibalik ko na ang puhunan ko dito 9You really need to be hands on in managing the business. As of today, I already had my return-on-investment,)” Arlene said during our visit to her salon.

Now 55 years old, Arlene oversees the operation of her business. The Department considers this as a successfully implemented project. According to the latest Social Welfare and Development Indicator (SWDI) assessment, an activity conducted by the DSWD to determine the level of well-being of 4Ps families, Arlene R. Padua and her family is now at Level 3 or Self-Sufficiency level. They are one of the families who were able to achieve the goal of the program and therefore were recommended to graduate from the 4Ps.

Her eldest child is already an I.T. graduate, the 2^nd child studies engineering in college, the 3^rd child is in Senior High School, and the youngest has reached Grade 8.

She was also able to own a motorcycle that the children use for transportation to school.

 

Beautifying Other 4Ps Lives

Having succeeded in life, Arlene also desires to be an instrument that brings change to the lives of other 4Ps beneficiaries as the program did to her. With the success of her salon, Arlene hired Rosel Bacsail, a 34-year-old parent of 5 kids in the same municipality.

Rosel is expecting a new addition to the family and she really needs an additional income that could help her and her husband who works as a construction worker.

Last May 2025, Rosel was hired as a manicurista at Arlene’s Hair and Nail Salon.

“Nakakatulong talaga. (It really helps.)” She said about how this job helps her own family. “Wala kaming masasabi. Mabait siya. (We have nothing to say but she’s kind).”

Arlene, being a former beneficiary of the 4Ps and was once in an unfortunate situation, relates to the struggles of Rosel.

She could only hope that with her guidance and the guidance of the 4Ps, Rosel would be able to make something beautiful as well with the interventions that she receives from the program. Arlene hopes that Rosel would experience the same make-over as she did with her life. This gives her fulfillment and a purpose in life.

The strands of her hair are like the experiences that she went through in life –individually, it is fragile but collectively, it is strong and beautiful. Now, each strand was a symbol, not of vanity, but of survival. Not of beauty, but of becoming.

Her crowning glory, she realized, was never just her hair.

It was her story.