MOST Filipinos will vote for a candidate who supports the continuation of the government’s multi-billion-peso dole program, despite criticism that it fosters political patronage and mendicancy, results of the latest Social Weather Stations survey showed Sunday.
The SWS said 80 percent of the 1,200 respondents surveyed from Feb. 5 to 7 would probably vote for a candidate who would continue the Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program, also called the conditional cash transfer program. Only 9 percent said they would probably not vote for such a candidate.
Some 12 percent said support for the program would not affect the way they vote.
All five presidential candidates—Vice President Jejomar Binay, Davao City Mayor Rodrigo Duterte, Senator Grace Poe, former Interior secretary Manuel Roxas II and Senator Miriam Defensor Santiago—support the CCT.
The SWS said the result was similar to its surveys conducted in September 2015 and January 2016.
The SWS said that the survey was conducted through face-to-face interviews with 300 respondents each from Metro Manila, Balance of Luzon, Visayas and Mindanao.
The survey has a sampling error margin of ± 3 percent for national percentages, ± 6 percent each for Metro Manila, Balance of Luzon, Visayas and Mindanao.
The government’s 4Ps provides monthly stipends to confirmed indigent families provided that the children stay in school.
The same SWS survey showed that 66 percent will also probably vote for candidates who are pushing for the full implementation of the Reproductive Health Law.
Some 62 percent said they will vote for those who will advocate the enactment of the Freedom of Information law.
The survey also showed that 60 percent will vote for those who will continue the “Daang Matuwid” policy of the Aquino administration.
The other advocacies provided during the SWS survey were as follows:
Reimposition of death penalty for heinous crimes (59 percent);
Defend the rights of LGBT (47 percent);
Enactment of the anti-political dynasty law (47 percent);
Enactment of a divorce law (34 percent);
Enactment of the Bangsamoro Basic Law or BBL (31 percent); and
Enactment of law allowing foreign ownership of lands (19 percent).
Last week, the militant youth group Anakbayan slammed the Aquino administration for using the 4Ps as a form of “legalized vote buying” using public funds.
“Out of desperation to let [the trailing] Mar Roxas win the presidential contest at all costs, the Aquino government is contributing all the resources under its command for the ruling party’s campaign,” said Anakbayan chairman Vencer Crisostomo.
He said patronage politics is the real meaning of Tuwid na Daan, recalling statements by Department of Social Welfare and Development secretary Corazon Soliman warning that “the fate of these programs would now be up to people voting for new leaders in the 2016 elections.”
Crisostomo said this is on top of the CCTs’ failure as an anti-poverty measure and its taking away of funds that should have been directly allotted for social services. For 2016, P64 billion will be allotted for the 4Ps, more than half of the DSWD’s P110.8-billion budget.
The Commission on Audit have previously criticized the 4Ps, pointing out that many beneficiaries are not actually poor and that billions in funds remain unliquidated. Despite the increase in the 4Ps budget in past years, CoA also noted a decline in the number of program beneficiaries.
“The CCTs is being used by the Aquino government to buy votes and get support of local government for the Roxas campaign. 4Ps assemblies have been transformed into election sorties where beneficiaries are threatened with the slashing of doles if Roxas doesn’t win the presidency,” Crisostomo said.