“Some people carry us through life with sacrifice, while some opportunities carry our dreams beyond the places where our feet first learned to stand.”
This was what it meant for Engr. Ram Ram A. Saliw-an, a former beneficiary of the Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program (4Ps) of the Department of Social Welfare and Development – Field Office – Cordillera Administrative Region (DSWD FO CAR).
Fondly remembering the quiet nights in their hometown of Brgy. Mabilong, Lubuagan, Kalinga, Ram Ram shared how the program became more than financial support; it helped reshape the family’s story, it served as a bridge between survival and self-sufficiency.
Following the loss of their father—a carpenter whose hands built both homes and dreams—to cancer, her mother Margarita, stepped up to the task of being both the pillar and light of their home. She quickly learned embroidery and weaving—not only mere cloth, but more so their tomorrow.
The weight of survival pressed hard on the young family. At one point during elementary school, Margarita gently asked Ram Ram to temporarily pause his studies to care for his younger sibling while she worked longer hours.
“Sometimes hope does not arrive loudly. Sometimes hope enters quietly,” says Ram Ram. “4Ps did not suddenly remove our struggles. But if my mother was the heart that kept our family alive, then 4Ps became the beacon that helped us see where to go next.”
First extended to his older brother, the 4Ps cash assistance eventually reached Ram Ram, which helped provide immediate relief to their family by purchasing rice for the dinner table and raw threads for Margarita’s loom.
For Ram Ram, the 4Ps helped reframe his struggles into motivation, driving him to excel academically. Ram Ram went on to graduate as High School Salutatorian, pursued a degree in Civil Engineering, served as the president of the highest student governing body, and worked as a student journalist bridging campus concerns to real solutions.
Driven by the sacrifices made at home and the opportunity provided by 4Ps, Ram Ram passed the Civil Engineering Licensure Examination on his very first attempt, becoming one of the first licensed engineers in his barangay.
Grateful for the 4Ps, the Saliw-an family shares that the program aptly laid a stable foundation where they can rise up from poverty.
“People often say that every life is a story already written by fate, but I grew up believing that some stories are written instead by sacrifice; line by line, wound by wound, and hope by hope,” says Ram Ram. “I have learned that opportunities possess a quiet power—they teach people that horizons were never meant to become walls.”//Christian Robert M. Sandoval, IOII, DSWD FO CAR
