A Bohol lawmaker has sought the creation of a national conditional fund transfer program in order to reduce poverty and promote human capital development.
Rep. Arthur Yap, in House Bill 823, proposed the creation of the “Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program” to make the 4Ps or cash transfer program permanent by providing for the statutory authority, ensuring continuous funding and laying down the basic parameters for the determination of target-beneficiaries and conditions for compliance.
Yap said the 4Ps aims to provide monitoring and assessment mechanism for the evaluation of the program and defines the duties and obligations of concerned government agencies tasked for the implementation of the program.
“The main objective of the program is to impact on the hunger situation of the poorest families in the country by granting them conditional cash benefits and investing in human capital. The conditionalities of the grant are primarily for the parents to send their children to school and to health care centers on a regular basis,” Yap said.
Citing the data gathered by the Philippine National Statistics Authority in the first semester of 2015, Yap said poverty incidence is at 25.3 percent, the lowest in nine years. The report also stated that 16 percent of Filipino families do not have enough income to buy their basic food and non-food needs.
Under the measure to be known as the “Conditional Cash Subsidy Institutionalization Act of 2016,” priority shall be given to the poorest household in the country selected through a uniform, objective and transparent set of criteria.
The targeted household-beneficiary shall receive a conditional cash subsidy of P500 per month for health and nutrition expenses or an equivalent of P6,000 per household-beneficiary per year.
The bill also provides an additional P300 per month per child for educational expenses or the equivalent of P3,000 per a 10-month school year. A maximum of three children per household-beneficiary shall be allowed.
The measure imposes program conditions to ensure compliance of all beneficiaries. These conditions consist of regular pre and post-natal care for pregnant women, attend responsible parenthood sessions, mothers’ classes and parent effectiveness seminars, preventive health check-ups and vaccine for children 0-5 years old and enrollment of children 3-5 years of age in day-care program or pre-school and attend at least 85 percent of the required school days.
It also provides that children 6-14 years old must be enrolled in school and attend at least 85 percent of the required school days and must also undergo deworming at least twice a year.
Each household-beneficiary shall receive the conditional cash subsidy for a maximum period of five years. But failing to comply with conditions identified in the program would mean suspension and/or removal of the beneficiary from it.