Include family planning in dole program, govt urged

LAWMAKERS on Monday night urged the government to impose family planning on the recipients of government handouts under its P39.8-billion dole program after Social Welfare Secretary Corazon Soliman said the average number of children among the poor beneficiaries was five.

Soliman said only three children per family could be enrolled in the program, but Pampanga Rep. Anna York Bondoc, vice chairman of the House committee on appropriations, said the government should require the beneficiaries to use contraceptives before they could get their monthly 1,400-peso dole.

In a nine-hour marathon hearing, Soliman said the program beneficiaries received P300 for each child kept in day care centers and schools, while the parents received P500 for a maximum of P1,400 a month.

She said the number of children covered by the program would grow from 6 million this year to 9 million by 2012.

“The government should impose the use of pills and condoms for compliance. They are having too many children,” Bondoc said in response.

The government would be enrolling 15.6 million children with the target of 5.2 million households by 2015.

To qualify for the handouts, the recipients must keep their children in school 85 percent of the time and pregnant women must obtain prenatal care at public health centers.

Soliman said it was not part of the Social Welfare Department’s mandate to distribute pills and condoms, but it was in their manual to teach parents responsible parenthood and the use of artificial and natural family planning methods.

She said the mothers were also being told that they should breastfeed babies up to two years.

House Senior Assistant Majority Leader Janette Garin said food stamps instead of cash.

“Just when the government wants to keep the poor healthy and educated, we also receive reports that the money only goes to junk food, beer and liquor,” Garin said.

The food stamps should come like paper money with designated items to be procured from accredited stores, Garin said.

Agham Rep. Angelo Palmones insisted that the reported increase in the sales of liquor whenever the dole was released was not fabricated. –Christine F. Herrera, Manila Standard Today