Tuesday, April 29, 2008 Editorial: Cash for the poor?
AMID the promises and good news that have become typical of every public appearance by President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, one "good news" leaves an unsettling feeling in the tummy: the "Ahon Pamilyang Pilipino" that aims to give cash subsidy worth P1,400 (P500 for each household and an additional P900 for a maximum of three children) to 300,000 poor families in the 20 poorest provinces before the year ends.
The total amount that the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) will be needing for this is P25.2-billion or a monthly bill of P420 million for the next five years.
The beneficiary family will have to promise that they will continue sending their children to school and to regularly visit health centers for routine tests, news about the subsidy said.
The project is the government's response to the fact that many of the poor cannot send their children to school not just because of the additional expense it eats into the family resources to buy materials for projects but also because the schoolchildren do not even have lunch.
Thus, to keep them in school, they have to have lunch money, ergo, cash subsidy.
Sounds knee-jerk to us; a solution to a problem concocted outside social realities, and amid a continued denial of corruption and inefficiency in government.
We have an idea of where the poorest of the poor are, and we know how government has time and again skipped these areas because they're simply so out there, and there is never enough manpower and resources to reach out to them.
We know fully well who benefits from all these cash outlay, among them our friendly neighborhood congressmen who dispense these as if this was their own while lapping up the fawning loyalty of the poor with glee.
Forgive us if we do not have much trust for government and how it dispenses its funds; especially when the funds to be dispensed is intended for the poor. But we've seen how the poor have been used and abused for some politician's glory.
It's a formula to win votes, gain support, and jumpstart a flagging popularity. Thus we cannot help but feel bile rise up as we listen to the promises of "Ahon Pamilyang Pilipino."
There's a lot to learn from non-government organizations and corporate social responsibility groups on how they deal with poverty and the empowerment of the poor, that we are sure government knows as well. Even the United Nations' World Food Program has its food-for-education in certain areas in Mindanao. But not one of these projects involves cold cash. There is always a service, a reciprocal service, and some needed commodities administered by a team of dedicated people.
That government opts for a quick solution on a short-term period appreciated by the government's track record of missing out on targets outside its paper reports. Thus, it raises suspicion. Along with that suspicion are the numbers 2010, which just cannot be erased from our thoughts as we ponder on the P420 million monthly allocation. We just hope we are wrong.
