Livelihood promised for CCT beneficiaries

FOR Rosalina Cayaon, the government’s Conditional Cash Transfer (CCT) program did not only change her life for the better but also secured the future of her children.

Cayaon was among the first beneficiaries of government’s CCT or Pantawid Pamilya program, receiving some P2,800 in cash grants monthly to ensure her children aged 14 years old and below are sent to school and are regularly attended to in health centers.

But after a few years of receiving aid from government, her children are now past 14 and are no longer covered by the government’s anti-poverty measure.

Department of Social Welfare and Development Secretary Corazon Soliman, however, told graduating beneficiaries of the program like Cayaon’s family that they will receive aid in education and livelihood.

Soliman said they have been implementing the Sustainable Livelihood Program to provide a starting fund for beneficiaries once they are done with the CCT program.

While in the CCT program, beneficiaries are taught different livelihood skills like handicrafts making and raising livestock, among others, to prepare them for after graduation from the program.

Another concern raised by graduating beneficiaries is on how they could send their children to college after the government stops giving them their monthly payout through the CCT.

The DSWD secretary said this has been addressed through partnerships of the agency with the Commission on Higher Education, which currently implements its Students’ Grants In-aid Program.

The program gives P30,000 to college students per semester in state colleges and universities.

Soliman said the grant is not in the form of a scholarship that students need to be on top of their class, as it only requires them to pass their subjects in college.

Some 196 college students from families of indigent families have been benefiting from the program this year.