THE DSWD’s three-core poverty alleviation programs, namely the Kapit-bisig Laban sa Kahirapan-Comprehensive and Integrated Delivery of Social Services (Kalahi-CIDSS), the Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program (4Ps) also known as Conditional Cash Transfer (CCT), and the Sustainable Livelihood Program (SLP), have notoriously been criticized by people as band aid solutions on a gunshot wound.
Indeed there are questionable principles behind its programs. Like 4Ps for instance, it looks like it’s a simple dole-out system that develops dependency among the poor instead of teaching them how to earn a living. There were undocumented reports that a lot of beneficiaries use their conditional cash grants in gambling or are pre-sold to lenders instead of really using them to send their kids to school.
I once talked with one of the program coordinators of SLP in one of the municipalities I handled and he honestly admitted that most beneficiaries of SLP failed to sustain the livelihood given to them. We are yet to see any statistical figure that would show a significant number of the beneficiaries really got out of the poverty line.
Yet, having been immersed in a community with about 70 percent poverty incidence a few years ago, I had seen how the pantawid program became really that - “Pantawid sa Kahirapan.” For the most part since it was implemented, it indeed helped our poorest of the poor in their day to day subsistence. It also forced them to send their kids to school, it being a requirement to avail of such benefits. But just like any other programs, it needs further re-tuning and polishing. Here are some of my suggestions:
1. For infrastructure projects under Kalahi, health centers should be given priorities so that health care can be accessed even in the remote areas of the hinterlands. As much as DSWD claims there is no room for politics in Kalahi projects, I have personally seen how a local chief executive can manipulate the decision on what project to build and where. And while the process of consultative, it can still be rigged. Having said that, priorities can actually be set from the national level and a health care facility should be on top of the list.
2. For Sustainable Livelihood Programs, the selection of beneficiaries is most crucial. It should consider the capability of the beneficiaries to sustain its livelihood. It should be given to those nearest to the poverty threshold and not those at the bottom, otherwise such investment will only be utilized for survival instead of sustainable livelihood. A counterpart scheme should also be employed to have a sense of ownership from the beneficiaries. For example, you provide pigs to those who can afford to feed them, otherwise, if you give them to the poorest of the poor, it will just be butchered the following day and be consumed as food.
3. For 4Ps program, a workable monitoring system should be put in place and LGU’s should be more involved in the monitoring.
The DSWD programs are far from perfect, but unless and until we come up with better alternatives then I am still for the continuation of the DSWD’s three-core poverty alleviation programs. It just needs further polishing to make it more effective in solving the perennial problem of poverty in our country.