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A FORMER
socioeconomic planning secretary has proposed that the
government consider giving incentives in cash or in kind
to poor families, similar to Brazil’s and Mexico’s
successful Bolsa Familia program that gives up to 95
reals a month to families who can keep their children in
school and take them to clinics for health checkups.
Felipe
Medalla said the country would only be able to
experience propoor growth after 10 to 20 years and
billions more in investments. The poor can’t wait this
long, thus his proposal.
“Clearly, the poor can’t wait for all the problems and
weaknesses of the government, politics, bureaucracy and
other institutions, which have deep and long historical
roots, to get fixed. There should be greater emphasis on
finding ways to make government programs and
expenditures more propoor, particularly for the rural
poor who account for two-thirds of the poverty incidence
in our country,” wrote Medalla in his paper titled “A
Framework for Formulating a NAPC Action Plan for Equity
and Propoor Growth” that he presented Friday.
Medalla
observed that economic growth is only benefitting
college graduates who work in business-process
outsourcing/call-center firms and possess all the skills
that global markets require.
But for
the poor, particularly those in rural areas, Medalla
said the effect of high economic growth is “very
indirect,” and it would take long years of high economic
growth rates before the growth directly benefits them.
If
government decides to adopt a cash-incentive program,
Medalla projects it will only spend P20 million to P30
million a year for this. “It is not cheap, but it’s not
expensive, either.”
He added
this is still better than encouraging the poor to seek
self-employment opportunities. “It [incentive program]
can be a source of corruption, but we need to think out
of the box. It’s just a matter of implementing the
proper policies.”
NAPC
secretary and lead convenor Domingo Panganiban said that
there is already an ongoing pilot test for such a
program. It is a cash-transfer program that awards
families able to keep their children in school for a
maximum of 21 days a month.
He cited
the United Nations’ midterm report on the Millennium
Development Goals that the country is on the right
track—and that the national gains have trickled down to
the grassroots. |
