A party-list lawmaker on Monday urged the leadership of the House of Representatives to act on the Makabayan bloc’s pending resolution investigating the implementation of the national government’s flagship Conditional Cash-Transfer (CCT) Program, or the Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program (4Ps).
Gabriela Women’s Party Rep. Luzviminda Ilagan made the call after the Asian Development Bank’s (ADB) findings showed that almost P19 billion of the CCT Program’s P62-billion budget did not go to the poor.
“The Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program’s leakage rate of 30 percentage is a huge waste of people’s taxes. The ADB’s findings that almost P19 billion of the CCT Program’s P62-billion budget did not go to the poor bolster the call to rechannel funds allocated to the Aquino administration’s much touted poverty-alleviation program directly to social services,” she said.
Ilagan said the number of poor families continues to increase at a rate that is on a par with the increase in the number of politicians who seek to benefit from the program’s implementation, “exploiting poverty and cultivating mendicancy to bolster political ambitions and political patronage.”
“The CCT compels children to attend schools and mothers to bring their children to health centers, yet the quality of education and health care given them continues to deteriorate. Public-school classrooms, like public hospitals are overcrowded and are short of facilities and personnel,” she said.
“It would benefit poor families more if funds were channeled directly to health and, education and, more important, toward job creation, instead of imposing conditionalities for meager sums. The CCT funds should be rechanneled to basic services,” Ilagan added.
According to the ADB, the CCT Program needs to improve the selection of its beneficiaries, saying, “The inclusive growth study notes, however, that improvements are needed in the program’s targeting system to reduce an estimated leakage rate of 30 percent.”
The ADB, however, said the program improved health outcomes and increased school participation among children 6 to 14 years old.
On her part, Social Welfare Secretary Dinky Soliman said the agency is already working to address problems in the implementation of 4Ps.
In House Resolution 332, filed by Minority Floor Leader Rep. Ronaldo Zamora, Bayan Muna Reps. Neri Colmenares and Carlos Isagani Zarate, Gabriela Reps. Ilagan and Emmi De Jesus, Kabataan Rep. Terry Ridon, ACT Teachers Rep. Antonio Tinio and AnakPawis Rep. Fernando Hicap, the lawmakers direct Committee on Poverty Alleviation to conduct inquiries on the CCT implementation.
De Jesus said the national women’s movement has consistently documented many irregularities in the implementation of 4Ps and their ill effects on women and families, dispelling claims made by the government that it has improved the situation of the poor.
Hicap said the Aquino government should get an explanation from the Department of Social Welfare and Development on this reported irregularities on implementation of its program.
4Ps is a human-development program of the Philippine national government which targets children up to 14 years old.
Image credits: Department of Social Welfare and Development