P44.25B CCT budget to serve more beneficiaries

SOCIAL Welfare Secretary Corazon Soliman said the proposed P44.25 billion budget for the conditional cash transfer program of the agency would serve some 700,000 beneficiaries by 2013.

“If the 2013 budget will be approved, about 3.8 million beneficiaries of the program will be served by the government’s anti-poverty reduction program nationwide. As of the last count, there are 3.5 million families currently benefiting from the cash grant,” Soliman said during last week’s launch of the new regional Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) building in Tacloban City.

Soliman said that under the proposed budget, the CCT program will get an increase of 12.2 percent from its 2012 allocation of P39.45 billion.

DSWD’s entire proposed budget for 2013 is P55.97 billion, and 75 percent of which constitutes the budget for the Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program (4Ps).

Of the proposed CCT budget, P40.4 billion was allocated to beneficiaries through Land Bank of the Philippines and its accredited conduits in areas without automated teller machines (ATM).

As of September 5, there are 3,038,420 household-beneficiaries and more than 7.4 million children enrolled in the program.

Soliman noted that by the end of 2013, or five years after the first set of 4Ps implementation in the country, at least 281,000-300,000 families are expected to be self-sufficient.

Based on the latest national household targeting system, 4.2-4.6 million of the poor families have 0-14 year-old children, which qualify them for the 4Ps.

“In 2014, we will re-certify the next family and expenditure survey, and rank the municipalities with high poverty incidence. The result would be our basis to cover more municipalities nationwide to list more poor Filipinos under the CCT program,” Soliman added.

As of the latest count, 372,662 households in Eastern Visayas are covered by 4Ps. The program covers about 91 percent of the villages in the region.

From January to June 2012, the DSWD released P456,070,436 cash grants to beneficiaries, P383.11 million of which was allotted for education and P233.79 million for health.

The 4Ps is the Aquino administration’s five-year main poverty mitigation measure. It gives cash grants to poor households, provided that the mothers avail themselves of pre- and post-natal care checkups and their children are immunized and attend 85 percent of their classes.

Beneficiaries can receive a monthly stipend of up to P1,400, or P500 per mother and P300 each up to three children. (Leyte Samar Daily Express)