Cost of identifying RP’s poorest: P1 B

MANILA- The Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) will launch in the first quarter of the year a project aimed at identifying the country’s poorest families and communities.

Social Welfare Secretary Esperanza Cabral said the DSWD would spend P1 billion this year for the National Household Targeting System for Poverty Reduction (NHTSPR) program.

Cabral said that while the budget is not enough to cover the entire country, the targeting system would generate a database of poor households that can be ranked according to estimated income using proxy variables and enable the DSWD to identify and properly prioritize their needs.

She said that through the system, the implementation of the poverty reduction program of the government is expected to become more effective through the proper distribution of government services to the poor and the disadvantaged.

Cabral cited the Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program or 4Ps as one of the assistance programs being implemented by the DSWD.

The 4Ps is a poverty-reduction strategy that provides cash assistance to extremely poor households as long as they comply with certain conditions.

These include parents ensuring that their children attend school at least 85 percent of the time and receive vaccinations and health care; pregnant women getting pre- and post-natal care and being attended by a skilled health attendant during childbirth; and parents and/or guardians attending family planning sessions, mother’s classes and parent effectiveness seminars.

Cabral said her agency would get a P5-billion budget increase for the full implementation of the 4Ps.

She said an additional 320,000 families would also receive cash assistance from the government, bringing to 640,000 the total number of program beneficiaries.

She added that this is 13 percent of the total number of poor families nationwide.

The DSWD received the biggest funding increase among government agencies at P10.5 billion this year, up by 117 percent from P4.8 billion last year. — Helen Flores, Philippine Star