THE Department of Social Welfare and Development on Wednesday presented to senators a proposed budget of P129.8 billion, 14 percent higher than its current budget.
During a hearing, Senator Loren Legarda, chairperson of of the Senate committee on finance, lamented how the agency failed to spend P4 billion during the administration of former President Benigno Aquino III.
Legarda also questioned why some of the agency’s programs needed to go through the local government units as was done during the Aquino administration instead of going straight to 4Ps beneficiaries.
Pledging reforms in her agency’s disbursement processes, Social Welfare Secretary Judy Taguiwalo said the proposed CCT budget includes an allotment of P49.4 billion for cash grant and another P23.4 for the rice allowance program.
She said that out of the current 4.4 million 4Ps beneficiaries, only 3.1 million are entitled to a monthly rice allocation of 20 kilos starting next year.
Taguiwalo said that the 1.3 million families are not qualified because their monthly income is already P500 to P1,000 above the poverty threshold.
But Taguiwalo later agreed to include excluded families in its rice subsidy program and convert the amount allotted for the government’s rice subsidy program into an outright cash grant, instead of a monthly rice allocation, as ordered by President Rodrigo Duterte.
“There is an average of P1,500 per month, and on top of that there are 20 kilos of rice per household that will be given by the government [under its conditional cash transfer program],” Taguiwalo had earlier said.
“This is to ensure that the beneficiaries will be able to send their children to school as long as they are enrolled within the 4Ps program.”
The Duterte administration has already earmarked an additional P23.4 billion for the rice subsidy program for 4Ps beneficiaries next year on top of the P49.4-billion budget for the CCT for 2017.
The funds are lodged under the P130-billion proposed budget requested by the DSWD next year.
Several lawmakers had earlier proposed to remove the rice subsidies promised by Duterte as an addition to the monthly stipend received by the 4Ps beneficiaries, saying the additional grant could be used to send more children to school or for medical checkups.
Taguiwalo said her department was now formulating a mechanism to clean up the list of dole recipients with a nationwide evaluation coming up “to see who should be included and excluded” from the program.
She also allayed the fears of beneficiaries who had been identified to have improved their income that they would continue to receive their regular cash grants but the department will have to validate this figure by meeting with the families.
Further assessment will be undertaken to ensure that appropriate interventions will be developed to sustain their improved status.