Some groups have accused the Liberal Party of using the Conditional Cash Transfer program to coerce recipients to attend campaign rallies of administration bets, specifically a recent “Unity Walk” at Luneta for former Interior and Local Government Secretary Manuel Roxas II.
Social Welfare Secretary Corazon Soliman has of course denied the allegations even as she admitted they have indeed told people they stood to lose their stipend if they fail to meet certain conditions —sending children to school and subjecting themselves to health consultations.
Soliman also hit the administration’s critics for what she said was a “flip-flopping support” to the program, with some even promising to expand it as a way to reach to the poor.
It is undeniable that the program, also called Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program, is a convenient tool for a sitting administration to sway the sentiment of the poor and translate their gratefulness into votes. Sure, the many voices in and around urban centers, social media, academe and business may be more circumspect about whom they would support, even going to the extent of laying down criteria to guide them in their decision.
To those who have neither access to information nor predisposition to make their choices more deliberately, who emerge are the faces and names of those purporting to care about them. Who puts food on the table is the primary question—not qualifications, experience, moral superiority or general fitness for the job.
Unfortunately, most voters fail to see beyond the short-term magnanimity of the dole bearers, and this is where the trouble begins. It’s misplaced indebtedness—it’s taxpayers’ money in the first place.
Cash transfers and any other form of “generosity” are good only for the day, the week at a maximum. The candidates who really care are those who are prepared to undertake measures so that there would be less people on the receiving list because they have been empowered to provide for their families on their own.