DSWD says 1.3M ‘non-poor’ recipients purged, over 600k under probe
The number of beneficiaries to be delisted from the government’s conditional cash transfer program could reach 2 million families, Social Welfare Secretary Erwin Tulfo said Thursday.
The number is higher than Tulfo’s earlier estimate of 1 million “undeserving” beneficiaries, and accounts for almost half of the total 4.4 million beneficiaries of the Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program (4Ps).
In an interview on CNN Philippines, Tulfo said the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) was cleansing the 4Ps list so that other poor Filipinos could benefit from the cash grant.
“[Based] on the records submitted to me by our division, the National Household Targeting System, we have identified 1.3 million families or households that are no longer considered poor,” Tulfo said in a mix of English and Filipino.
He said “graduates” of the program have shown they already have the means to support themselves, or their children have already graduated from school.
The DSWD is also looking at delisting 600,000 more beneficiaries who are refusing the agency’s efforts to verify their status.
“This is a conditional cash transfer. Which means there are conditions before you get this grant,” he said.
“One of the conditions is you have to inform the DSWD if you will move from one barangay to another. Another condition is, if we come to your house and ask you questions for an update, you need to let us in and answer us. Failure to do so will really result in your being delisted as a 4Ps beneficiary.”
Tulfo said they will submit the updated list to Malacañang soon.
He said there are more than 14 million households living below the poverty line, but the department doesn’t have enough funds to support all of them.
“We can service only about 4.4 million beneficiaries out of the 14 million identified as poor households,” he said.
Tulfo also said that they are currently digitizing the department’s records for more efficient transactions in the future.
Earlier, Tulfo said he would tap informers to identify persons who should be delisted from the 4Ps list.
He said he is also eyeing an amnesty system to allow unqualified 4Ps beneficiaries to surrender their accounts to the DSWD to avoid facing charges. Gabriellea Parino