A senior official of the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) affirmed that some 761,150 households will be retained in the list of Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program (4Ps) beneficiaries.
In an interview on Tuesday (October 31) over PTV 4’s Bagong Pilipinas Ngayon hosted by Nina Corpuz, DSWD Undersecretary for Innovations Edu Punay explained that the list of households is the result of the reassessment of beneficiaries in line with the directive of Department Secretary Rex Gatchalian.
“Ibig sabihin, sila po ay hindi ga-graduate; tuluy-tuloy po sila sa programa po natin dahil sa assessment po, nakita po ng ating departamento na sila po ay talagang mahirap pa rin at nangangailangan pa rin ng assistance under the 4Ps program,” Usec. Punay pointed out.
(That means, they will not graduate; they will continue to benefit from the program. Because of the assessment, our department saw that they are still non-poor and still need assistance under the 4Ps program.)
The Undersecretary for Innovations added: “At ang ibig sabihin po nito ay, iyon nga po, sila po ay mare-retain sa 4Ps program. Ang nakita pong dahilan ng departamento ay ang impact po ng pandemic.”
(That means they will be retained in the 4Ps program. The reason found by the department for this is the impact of the pandemic.)
The over 760,000 households were part of the 1.1 million households earlier assessed as non-poor under the Listahanan 3 of the National Household Targeting System for Poverty Reduction (NHTS-PR).
Of the 1.1 million 4Ps members, 339,660 households were assessed as Level 3 or self-sufficient which are recommended for graduation or exit from the program.
“Ang ginagawa po dito sa mga graduations po natin, sila po ay ini-endorse sa mga local government units at binibigyan din natin ng mga iba’t ibang assistance or mga programa tulad ng Sustainable Livelihood Program (SLP) para matulungan pa rin sila kahit wala na sila sa 4Ps program po ay sila’y tuluy-tuloy na bibigyan ng assistance ng pamahalaan,” Usec. Punay explained.
(What we do here with our graduations, they are endorsed to local government units and we also provide them with various assistance or programs such as the Sustainable Livelihood Program (SLP) to still help them as they exit from the 4Ps program.)
The 4Ps is the national poverty reduction strategy and a human capital investment program of the government that provides conditional cash transfer to qualified household-beneficiaries.
It is a human development program which provides social protection, social assistance, social development, and other complementary support services in partnership with concerned agencies, local government units and other stakeholders toward improving the health and nutrition, education, and socio-economic aspects of the lives of the beneficiaries. #
