Cut dole recipients to 1m, govt urged

OPPOSITION lawmakers on Wednesday demanded that the government reduce the number of its dole recipients to 1 million from 2.3 million now so it could use the money saved to build more classrooms and hire more teachers.

House Minority Leader Edcel Lagman and House Deputy Minority Leader Danilo Suarez said the P39.8 billion that the administration wanted to spend on its conditional cash transfer program next year could be put to better use, and in particular to build classrooms and hire more teachers.

Suarez also warned that the government dole could be used for “indirect vote-buying” in the 2013 midterm elections.

Earlier this week, nine congressmen who went to Mexico to study its dole program for the poor urged the administration to have an exit plan for the dole by 2014.

Suarez said the Aquino administration’s dole program was a copy of the previous administration’s poverty alleviation program, but it had not been well planned.

The previous administration did its homework and even consulted village leaders who knew who the beneficiaries should be, Suarez said. But now even village officials did not know who the beneficiaries were, he said.

Suarez said expanding the coverage to 3 million recipients by next year and increasing the dole by 89 percent to P39.8 billion would merely reinforce the “culture of mendicancy.”

Lagman said the dole program was not sustainable and must be evaluated to see if it was really easing poverty.

The minority bloc said what was needed was more jobs.

“The question is whether this administration can deliver the goods, considering that the economy actually lost jobs during their watch despite the global recovery. How can we better match our workers to available jobs when some agencies … are being severely underfunded to make way for disguised dole schemes like the cash transfer program?” the group said.

Lagman said the dole program might continue, but its benefits must be validated. –Christine F. Herrera, Manila Standard Today