OPPOSITION lawmakers are prodding Social Welfare Secretary Corazon “Dinky” Soliman of to overhaul its list on conditional cash transfer scheme for the poor to ensure that recipients actually benefit from the program.
House independent bloc leader Rep. Ferdinand Martin Romualdez of Leyte and Buhay party-list Rep. Joselito Atienza, said their proposal could help address any irregularities, such as double entries in the database or payroll of the beneficiaries.
The government must once and for all resolve the long-standing controversies in the release of funds through the conditional cash transfer (CCT) or the Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program (4Ps).
“The DSWD must step up the process of wiping out spurious names from the list of deserving beneficiaries. We must ensure that the most vulnerable sectors are the ones benefitting from the centerpiece poverty alleviation program. Otherwise, it will defeat the purpose of the CCT,” Romualdez said.
He said there is a need to purge the list of the 4Ps beneficiaries to ensure that public funds do not just go into waste.
Atienza, for his part, said the process of cleansing the list is too slow, affecting the regularity and transparency of the program.
“Since the government is spending people’s money here, we should ensure that only deserving people are benefitting from the program,” he added.
Romualdez expressed disappointment that the 4Ps under the 2015 P2.606-trillion General Appropriations Act was raised to P64.7-billion from last year’s P62.6 billion despite the failure of the DSWD to answer allegations of the program’s irregularities.
Earlier, Romualdez, Speaker Feliciano Belmonte’s Jr. and House deputy minority leader and Bayan Muna party-list Rep. Neri Colmenares sought a congressional probe of reports that 30 percent or P19 billion of the P62 billion allocated for the CCT program did not go to the intended beneficiaries.