Equity

While on vacation the other weekend in my hometown in the heart of Leyte, I chanced upon a spirited conversation among some members of my extended family during one of the usual impromptu gatherings. It seemed they were in a fix trying to find logic about something that an aggrieved relative—a widowed mother of five…

MANILA, Philippines – The administration of President Aquino would provide livelihood programs to the country’s poorest of the poor who are also beneficiaries of the conditional cash transfer (CCT) program to give the people a sustainable income.

MANILA, Philippines – The government will launch tomorrow a five-year program aimed at providing guaranteed employment to beneficiaries of the Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program (4Ps), the government’s conditional cash transfer (CCT) program.

“Give a man a fish and he will live for a day. Teach a man how to fish and he will live for a lifetime,” this is one of the best known quotes by the Taoist philosopher Lao Tzu. This quote has often been cited in a number of negative feedbacks regarding the Pantawid Pamilyang…

CLARK FREEPORT, Pampanga, Philippines – Social Welfare Secretary Corazon Soliman yesterday said some lawmakers had been “misinformed” when they called for an immediate exit from the government’s conditional cash transfer (CCT) program.

Two reports, released one after the other by financial and economic think tanks that have found Manila nearly the cheapest city worldwide when it comes to cost of living, come with a downside: they also disclose that Manila has low wage and purchasing power levels. They indicate that while Manila may be a boon to…

THE congressional allies of President Benigno Aquino III are headed for a clash today with Social Welfare Secretary Corazon Soliman over when the government will end its multi-billion-peso dole program and how many recipients there should be.

MANILA, Philippines – The Philippines’ conditional cash transfer (CCT) program could increase annual incomes of beneficiaries by 12.6 percent, resulting in the reduction of poverty incidence by 6.2 percent, simulations by the World Bank (WB) and the Australian Agency for International Development (AusAID) showed.

THE GOVERNMENT’s cash grant scheme for the poor is expected to raise annual income of beneficiaries and at the same time reduce poverty level, the World Bank said in a statement on Friday.

THE lawmakers who went to Mexico to study its conditional cash transfer program on Tuesday urged the administration to end its own P21.9-billion dole, saying they did not want the Philippines to go through the same difficulties that the Latin American state had been going through.

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.

The Commission on Audit (COA) on Thursday revealed that not all beneficiaries of the government’s conditional cash transfer (CCT) program in 2009 were actually qualified to receive stipends.

Despite the volatile market, the Philippine Stock Exchange (PSE) registered an 18 percent jump in net income for the first six months to P174.8 million, up 18 percent from P148.3 million in the same period last year.

THE women’s group Gabriela on Monday said some recipients of government dole had to stop working to qualify for the cash payouts, while others received less than the promised amount, indicating an avenue for corruption.

MANILA (Xinhua) — The Philippines has the highest income inequality rate among members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), a recent study made by a local research firm has revealed.

MANILA, Philippines – The government will target the country’s 1.7 million professionals like lawyers and doctors in its tax examination and revenue generation campaign next year, Finance Secretary Cesar Purisima said yesterday.

Filipino city-dwellers may not have gotten any richer in the past decade, but rather much more than a penny (or centavo) smarter. The socio-economic status of majority of Filipino consumers in urban areas may not have improved much over the past 10 years, but Filipinos are exhibiting wiser purchasing habits in the more recent past,…

MANILA, Philippines – Beneficiaries of the Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program (4Ps) believe that access to a regular job rather than conditional cash assistance would help them rise from poverty, a recent study by Social Watch Philippines (SWP) showed.

MANILA, Philippines – The Philippines has the highest income inequality in the Southeast Asian region, with roughly 10 percent of the country’s population accounting for a third of total income, according to a study conducted by Stratbase Research Institute.

It was worth looking at how Conditional Cash Transfer (CCT) program works in Mexico, why it has been able to help so many people, and how the program ensures proper use of the resources which are given to the beneficiaries. This, in a nutshell, sums up Leyte Governor Carlos Jericho L. Petilla’s insight on the…

MANILA, Philippines – The government’s conditional cash transfer (CCT) or 4Ps program significantly improved the health, nutrition and education of children of low-income families, Social Welfare Secretary Corazon Soliman said yesterday, citing studies conducted by the Social Weather Stations (SWS) and Ateneo de Manila University.

OVER 432,000 families in the country’s remote areas received P2 billion in cash under the government’s Conditional Cash Transfer (CCT) program, officials said on Wednesday. Paolo Baltao, the president of G-Xchange Inc. (GXI), the mobile commerce subsidiary of Globe, said that the P2 billion cash grants went to the 432,510 households in 300 far-flung municipalities…

SELF-EMPLOYED people including doctors, lawyers and businessmen paid an average tax of only P5,800 last year, Finance Secretary Cesar Purisima said Tuesday.

MANILA, Philippines – The Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) will tighten its rules on professionals and self-employed individuals to boost tax collections by P140 billion a year, Commissioner Kim Henares said over the weekend. She said the agency hopes to improve revenue collections from this group of earners, noting that professionals and self-employed individuals earn…

MANILA, Philippines – The beneficiaries of the P21-billion conditional cash transfer (CCT) program of the Department of Social Welfare and Development have already reached two million, boosting the anti-poverty agenda of the Aquino administration. Presidential spokesman Edwin Lacierda described the development as a “milestone” in government efforts to help the poorest of the poor.

A BOOMING stock market has expanded the Philippines’ billionaires list to a record 11, with the combined wealth of the 40 richest also hitting an all-time high, Forbes.com said on Thursday. Shopping mall king Henry Sy, 86, saw his assets surge 44 percent to $7.2 billion over the past year and remains the Philippines’ richest…

THE Philippines’ booming stock market lifted the fortunes of the country’s richest people to an all-time high, bringing their collective wealth to $34 billion against last year’s $22.8 billion, Forbes magazine says in its Web site. The number of Filipino billionaires also more than doubled this year to 11, with the country’s 32 tycoons getting…

MANILA, Philippines – Eighty-six-year-old mall magnate Henry Sy remains the richest man in the Philippines while port operator Enrique Razon Jr. joined the elite billionaires’ list this year, according to the annual listing conducted by Forbes Magazine.

(Statement of Secretary Rosalinda Dimapilis-Baldoz of the Department of Labor and Employment, Republic of the Philippines at the 100th  Session of the International Labor Conference in Geneva, Switzerland, June, 2011.)

Washington D.C.—A new study by the Independent Evaluation Group (IEG) spotlights the impact of World Bank-supported programs in protecting the most vulnerable during the last decade. The study shows that the majority of social safety nets (SSNs)—programs designed to protect the poor from shocks and contribute to reducing chronic poverty—achieved their objectives. In several countries…