The Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) should extend the period of assistance given to current beneficiaries of its conditional cash transfer program instead of adding more families to the program, the Philippine Institute for Development Studies (PIDS) said in a statement.
The DSWD’s conditional cash transfer program, known as the Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino program or 4Ps, provides cash incentives to identified poor households that comply with certain requirements such as their children’s regular attendance in schools and the mothers’ regular visits to health clinics. The beneficiaries were selected through the National Household Targeting System for Poverty Reduction (NHTS-PR).
The institute said that lengthening the assistance period will ensure that beneficiary children can finish high school.
“If this happens, they will have more employment opportunities when they enter the labor market,” PIDS said.
4Ps gives families P300 a month for every child, or P3,000 for a school year, for a maximum of three children. Beneficiary children are those 14 years old or younger. The maximum period of assistance given to the family is five years.
Each family is also allotted P500 a month for health expenses.
A recent PIDS study found that high school graduates can earn as much as P246 a day, 32 percent more than the P186 average daily wage earned by elementary school graduates.
“The study therefore deems it favorable to extend the coverage to up to 16-18 years of age to enable the 4Ps children to finish high school and to increase the period of coverage from 5 to 10 years or even longer,” it said. — BM, GMA News
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