Presidential candidates have included in their platforms their promise to continue and enhance the Conditional Cash-Transfer (CCT) Program of the government which this year has a national budget allocation of P62 billion. Also known as the Pantawid Pamilya Pilipino Program, or 4Ps, it has been hailed as a commendable antipoverty program, but it is certainly more than that.
It is instructive, therefore, to get a little more acquainted with the details, for the reader to better appreciate what our CCT program is, and how it does impact the poor in our society and the whole nation significantly in years to come.
As we had earlier written, the 4Ps or CCT Program is the government’s direct intervention to stop the cycle of poverty in which many marginalized Filipino families are caught, through no fault of theirs.
Education is the basic approach to breaking the cycle, because education endows knowledge and skills to make a person employable or otherwise become an income-generating agent. Education is the liberating breakthrough that provides the economic opportunity, the higher the level of education, the better the opportunity. So one of the conditions of the cash transfer or payment to the beneficiary is to continue to keep their children in school up to a target level.
The maintenance of good health is as basic a “weapon” to break the cycle of poverty. A sick person cannot be an economically productive, active member of society.
So the CCT seeks to incentivize the poor family to send to, and keep their children in, school, and to keep them healthy—including their mothers. The assumption is that the targeted poor family-beneficiaries would never by their own selves have their poverty cycle broken—for lack of access to basic education or for lack of access to adequate health services.
Geographical coverage
The Philippine CCT Program is in its ninth year of implementation. It started in 2008 covering 160 cities and municipalities in 28 provinces in all 17 regions. As of June 2015, the program covers 41,519 barangays in all 144 cities, and 1,483 municipalities in 80 provinces nationwide.
Household coverage
As of June 2015, 4,391,768 active households were registered in the program, distributed by island group as follows:
Luzon 1,794,897 (40.87 percent)
Mindanao 1,698,772 (38.68 percent)
Visayas 898,099 (20.45 percent)
The outreach to households is expanding but, at the same time, decreasing or increasing, as the status or condition of households change. Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD), the implementing agency, maintains a Beneficiary Updates System (BUS), updating households information continuously, using this as basis in monitoring compliance of beneficiaries with the conditions to their participation in the program. “The Philippines has pioneered the development of conditional cash transfers in Asia, largely through Pantawid,” said Asian Development Bank Country Director Richard Bolt, adding, “and should be proud of its achievements.” Our 4Ps indeed, by its coverage of 4.4 billion people, is the world’s third largest CCT Program in terms of people reached, comments Bolt, after Brazil’s 8.8 million and Mexico’s 6.5 million.
Conditions for the CCT
It bears repeating that CCT is not a dole-out program. There are conditions that must be met by beneficiaries. The education condition requires children 3 to 5 years old to attend day care/pre-school; children 6 to 14 years old to attend primary and secondary schools, now extended to 15 to 18 years old.
The health condition requires health checkup for pregnant women and children 0 to 5 years old; and deworming for children 6 to 14 years old in elementary school. In addition, “Family Development Sessions” (FDS) by parents are conducted and must be attended. The DSWD’s Compliance Verification System (yes, there’s such a thing) reports 98.74-percent compliance for the education condition; 97.31-percent compliance for the health condition, and 94.84-percent compliance for the FDS, as of March/April 2015.
It is a welcome development that our presidential aspirants recognize the value of our CCT Program, and have committed to continue it. And so we should appreciate it, and be thankful for it. By helping keep children in school, as well as by keeping them and their mothers healthy, our poor families do not have to be perpetually disadvantaged.
Say a prayer of encouragement for the 13,262 technical and administrative personnel who have been hired or will be hired to implement the CCT Program nationwide. Director Leonardo C. Reynoso of the DSWD is the national program manager, of the Pantawid Pamilya Pilipino Program.