No funds for more poor families, says DSWD

MANILA, Philippines — It’s an order well-meant but lacking in funds.

The Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD), in a statement, said that it could not yet accommodate the 300,000 additional families President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo ordered included in a government poverty-reduction program by next year.

The DSWD said it would need P5 billion more for the 300,000 households under the Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program or 4Ps by 2010.

“Secretary Esperanza Cabral disclosed that many poor families are requesting to be included in the 4Ps, the country’s conditional cash transfer program, but currently the funds can only accommodate 700,000 households,” the statement said.

Following a state visit to Brazil in June, President Arroyo ordered the number of 4Ps beneficiaries increased from 700,000 to one million.

The program has a budget of P10 billion for 700,000 families.

“We thank President Arroyo for supporting the budget requirements of 4Ps. The president continues to look for more funds to expand the program,” Cabral said in the statement.

The 4Ps was patterned after Latin American conditional cash transfer programs, the biggest of which is Brazil’s Bolsa Familia.

The Philippines’ 4Ps is described as a “social development and poverty reduction strategy.”

It provides cash grants of up to P1,400 a month to poor households for health, nutrition and education needs, particularly for those with children up to 14 years, pregnant mothers and their kids who avail themselves of the social services program of the government.

At present, 4Ps covers 255 municipalities and 15 cities in 17 regions of the country.

Cabral said 4Ps will be expanded to provinces and cities “with large pockets of poverty that were not previously included as target beneficiaries.”

She said more local government executives had been asking the DSWD to include their areas in the program. –Nikko Dizon, Philippine Daily Inquirer