3 million Pinoys benefited from poverty alleviation program

MANILA, Philippines – Nearly three million indigent Filipinos benefited from government’s Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program (4Ps), a poverty alleviation strategy implemented by the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD).

National Economic and Development Authority National Planning and Policy director Dennis Arroyo said a total of 2,955,215 individuals, mostly women and children, benefited from the conditional cash transfer program of the DSWD.

Citing the September 2009 report on the 4Ps program, Arroyo said some 39,650 pregnant women visited health centers and availed of preventive check-ups and health care.

He said 789,446 children under five years of age had availed of immunization/preventive check-ups while 401,644 children aged 3-5 years enrolled in day care centers and pre-schools.

Arroyo said a total of 1,073,935 children aged 6-14 years had enrolled in elementary and high school and 650,540 or 93 percent of grantees were women.

The 4Ps was piloted in 2007 in four municipalities in the provinces of Misamis Occidental and Agusan Del Sur and two cities in Metro Manila.

President Arroyo expanded in 2008 the implementation of the program to the 27 poorest provinces covering about 320,000 extremely poor households with a corresponding annual budget of P5 billion.

Because of the program’s success, the number of beneficiaries increased to 700,000 in mid-2009, a statement from Malacañang said.

Before the year ended, President Arroyo increased the target beneficiaries to one million and ordered DSWD to allocated a budget of P15 billion for the expanded 4Ps.

To date, some 17 regions, 80 provinces, 644 municipalities, and 60 cities are covered by the 4Ps, Malacañang said.

The program provides cash grant packages such as: 1) health and nutrition cash grant package of P500 per month per household or P6,000 per year for health checkups, vaccines and foods; 2) an educational cash grant package of P300 per month per child for school needs or P3,000 per school year. –Paolo Romero (The Philippine Star)