DSWD budget to help 1.3-M ex-CCT beneficiaries

MANILA, Philippines - The proposed P128-billion budget of the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) for 2017 includes provisions to further help 1.3 million former beneficiaries of Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program (4Ps) in their livelihood, Sen. Loren Legarda said yesterday.

The 4Ps is a government program that provides conditional cash grants to the poorest of the poor to improve the health, nutrition and education of their children. It is patterned after the conditional cash transfer schemes in Latin American and African countries, which claimed to have lifted the lives of millions of people from poverty.

As chair of the Senate committee on finance, Legarda has been defending in the plenary the proposed P3.3-trillion 2017 national budget of the Duterte administration. 

According to her, 1.3 million out of the 4.4 million household beneficiaries of the 4Ps have already improved their level of well-being and are now classified as “transitioning households.”

She said these transitioning households would continue to get educational grants, health services through the Department of Health and PhilHealth, and livelihood assistance. 

“Transitioning households are those whose level of well-being have improved but are still vulnerable to economic shocks,” the senator said. “Thus, to ensure that we build on the gains of the 4Ps, they are prioritized in the DSWD’s Sustainable Livelihood Program (SLP).” 

The SLP is a community-based, capacity building program that seeks to improve the socio-economic status of the program’s participants through various modalities like skills training, seed capital fund, pre-employment assistance and cash for building livelihood assets. It offers two tracks –microenterprise development and employment facilitation.

Legarda explained the SLP is also available to non-4Ps beneficiaries. 

About 80 percent of SLP beneficiaries are from transitioning households of the 4Ps, while 20 percent are non- 4Ps beneficiaries but are considered poor by the National Household Targeting System for Poverty Reduction. They are identified as part of the vulnerable group (affected by disasters, differently abled, older persons and out of school youth.)

“I am a believer in providing capital assistance and tools for microenterprises and livelihood opportunities for our people because everywhere we go around the country, people say they want to have sources of additional income. It is important that we make the SLP accessible to the poor by simplifying requirements and government processes,” she said.

She added inter-agency convergence is crucial in helping poor families emerge from poverty, stressing that various government agencies – such as the Department of Trade and Industry, Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE), Department of Science and Technology and the Technical Education and Skills Development Authority – have livelihood and skills training programs.

She said the DSWD should also tap the services of DOLE’s Public Employment Service Offices (PESOs) for 4Ps members, who wish to be employed instead.

She said every local government unit is supposed to have a PESO, which will serve as an information center where job seekers, especially in rural areas, can ask about available employment opportunities and services offered by DOLE and other labor-related agencies.

This would ensure that employment-creation initiatives are matched with local training programs and livelihood activities, avoiding mismatches, which greatly contribute to high unemployment rates, Legarda said.

Meanwhile, the Senate will include a special provision in the budget to prioritize persons with disabilities (PWDs) or families with members who are PWDs in accessing DSWD’s SLP.

Senators also urged the DSWD to simplify its criteria of qualified beneficiaries of the social pension for indigent senior citizens so that all indigent senior citizens who are not receiving pension from Social Security System (SSS), Government Service Insurance System (GSIS) or Veterans Pension are automatically qualified for the program.