1.8M to exit cash aid program

THE Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) is expecting 1.8 million beneficiaries under the Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program (4Ps) to exit the program by next year.

“By next year, DSWD is expecting around 1.8 million more families to undergo mandatory exit from the program,” Senator Pia S. Cayetano, who sponsored the budget, told the plenary.

The 4Ps is the government’s national poverty reduction strategy and human capital investment program that provides conditional cash transfer to poor households.

“These are households that would have completed the seven-year maximum duration as prescribed by law,” she added.

Beneficiaries are pulled from the program when they reach the seven-year limit, become non-poor, or when their last monitored child turns 19 or finishes high school.

“Once they reach this cap, they are automatically exited from the program, regardless of current status,” Ms. Cayetano said.

She added that beneficiaries may transition to the Sustain Livelihood Program (SLP) once they exit the program.

She said that 92% of SLP beneficiaries come from the 4Ps program, “meaning after they have been helped for their survival, they would be able to transform themselves for their livelihood.”

The senator added that the agency will also transition to a Community-Based Monitoring System to track 4Ps beneficiaries. “Although they have not made the formal transition, this appears to be a smaller number than the one that they are basing their current beneficiaries on,” she said. — Adrian H. Halili