THE Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) in Davao Region has allocated P5.06 billion for its flagship program, Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program (4Ps), this year, an increase of more than 300 percent compared to the P1.66 billion allocated last year.
DSWD-Davao Assistant Director for Operations Rebecca Santamaria said the regular Conditional Cash Transfer (CCT) has P4,541,970,060 allocation, while the modified CCT has P523,012,880 allocation, which includes rice subsidy.
Of the P4,541,970,060 budget for the regular CCT beneficiaries, P1,757,511,900 has been allotted for education grant, P1,265,662,800 for health grant, and P1,518,795,360 for rice subsidy.
As to the P523,012,880 budget for the modified CCT, P171,887,600 is intended for education grant, P159,602,400 for health grant, and P191,522,880 for rice subsidy.
Santamaria said the amount will be gradually downloaded to the Pantawid beneficiaries through their CCT cards.
She added that only beneficiaries who complied with the requirements will get educational and health grants, as well as rice subsidy.
The modified CCT program is meant for the vulnerable poor sector not included in the 2009 database of the National Household Targeting System for Poverty Reduction (NHTS-PR) for lack of permanent address.
Regular CCT is one of the poverty-alleviation programs of the government under the DSWD that provides cash grants for education and health of the children of the beneficiaries in hopes that these children will be able to finish their studies and be employable members of the society.
DSWD said MCCT is patterned after the CCT, also a poverty-alleviation program that appropriately caters to the street dwellers and indigenous groups that are in nomadic conditions due to lack of permanent dwelling.
DSWD earlier planned to allocate a huge chunk of its P137-billion proposed budget to the 4Ps and the Social Pension Program for poor senior citizens.
As of the moment, Davao Region has accounted 231,864 beneficiaries of the regular CCT and 29,065 beneficiaries of the modified CCT.