Study pushes for `deliberate’ rollout of cash program for poor

MANILA, Philippines—The government should proceed with the expansion of the conditional cash transfer (CCT) program but with due caution, a government think-tank said in a news release.

According to Gilberto Llanto, a senior research fellow with the government Philippine Institute for Development Studies (PIDS), there is no need to rapidly expand the coverage of the CCT when crucial program components have yet to be tested and proven.

Under the CCT program of the Philippine government, dubbed as the Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program (4Ps), beneficiaries composed of identified poor families are given a monthly stipend of up to P1,400 on condition that they keep their children in school and regularly visit rural health centers for checkups and immunizations. The 4Ps seeks to improve the health status of mothers and poor children, and reduce poverty in the long run.

The Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) has already piloted the implementation of the 4Ps in a few barangays (villages). However, Llanto suggested that it would be best to move slowly at first to test and try systems and procedures, train staff, and establish an effective verification and monitoring mechanism before launching a full-scale coverage of the program.

In his paper, Llanto enumerated some of the most important aspects that need to be considered to make the implementation of the program cost-effective.

First, it is worthwhile to establish an effective targeting system to make sure that only the worthy poor households will be enrolled in the program and funds could not be (mis)channelled by politicians for self-serving interest.

Second, schools and rural health units should exist in the targeted areas since recipient households are required to maintain children in school for an agreed period of time, and members of the households to make regular visits to rural health centers.

Llanto pointed out, however, that since the selected municipalities or barangays are among the poorest in the country, they usually are unable to put up or maintain such infrastructure. Thus, the absence of these needed infrastructure will serve as a bottleneck in the implementation of the 4Ps in targeted areas.

Likewise, partner local government units (LGUs), which presumably are lower-income municipalities and provinces, may find it difficult to produce their counterpart funding for the 4Ps, which is a collaborative effort by the DSWD, Department of Education, National Anti-Poverty Commission, and LGUs.

“The program design should therefore take this into account because in the past, some poorer LGUs had waivered their commitment to produce counterpart funding in foreign-funded projects, thereby eventually leading to implementation failure,” Llanto stated.

Another major area that must be considered is the establishment of an effective compliance and monitoring mechanism. To ensure that the cash subsidies will lead to the desired health and education outcomes, the government has to establish an efficient and cost-effective verification and monitoring system. For example, the government should be able to monitor and verify whether children beneficiaries actually attend classes and whether mothers do bring their children to health units for checkup and immunization.

Right now, the government is developing a computer-based system for verification of compliance but it should ensure that an effective and user-friendly system will be installed in CCT areas. Also, collaborating LGUs should have the necessary hardware, access to the Internet, and electric power to support the verification and monitoring apparatus once this has been developed, tested, and rolled out.

Lastly, the paper pointed out the importance of monitoring and evaluating the impact of the program. Guidelines for the graduation of beneficiaries from the program should be put in place before the full implementation of the program and not when the program is already being implemented.

“If a graduation policy is determined at a later stage of program implementation, there could be resistance on the part of some households who would have developed an attitude of entitlement. This would make the program very costly and difficult to sustain,” Llanto cautioned. –INQUIRER.net