CCT: Did it really take the beneficiaries out of poverty?

(A paper for the lecture-forum about CCT program presented by Dr. Celia Reyes)

            Poverty is the worst form of violence; it may kill us if we do not know how to fight against this form of violence. Poverty is one of the main problems that we, as citizens of our country, were trying to resolve. No one could resolve it except us, ourselves.

            Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program or the so called “4ps” is the Philippine version of Conditional Cash Transfer program. It was implemented under Aquino Administration leaded by the country’s president, President Benigno “Noynoy” S. Aquino III. It was the administration’s way of solving and minimizing the problems of poverty among Filipino citizens. I was glad that I have given the chance to listen and to witness a public lecture-forum that focuses on this anti-poverty program of the government, the 4ps. It serves as a way for us, the students, to learn a lot about this program concerning the country’s problem on increasing rate of poverty.

             I admired Dr. Celia Reyes, the speaker and resource person from the Philippine Institute of Development Studies, for delivering and for presenting the information about the said program; who were the beneficiaries, how will it help them and how this program give benefits to the beneficiaries. I liked that part when she mentioned about who were the beneficiaries of the said program. As regards to this, the inequality between Filipino citizens who wants to be the beneficiary and to those who need and deserve to be the beneficiary is visible. Of course, each one of us would be grateful if we were receiving a monthly allowance or household budget from the government. It was a big help in our financial problems.

             But this program, the 4ps, is strictly for the poor. I mean, it is for the poorest among the poor. As stated in the presentation, an estimated at about 30% of the CCT budget in the past three years, which is a good portion of the CCT, did not go to those who are deserving beneficiaries, to the poorest of the poor. It means that the administration in the past three years had distributed billions of pesos to those people, who were not really poor; which also mean that there is a problem on how they evaluate the data of people who deserve to be the beneficiary of the said program. I think P-Noy should evaluate his members who were assigned to this program and warn them to avoid mistakes in evaluating the data to who they should give the opportunity to benefit from the program they implemented.

             It was good to hear from the speaker that the implementing agency, the DSWD, took an action on removing thousands of CCT beneficiaries from the program for they were not really poor. It should be done as early as they could for the consistently poor were the one carrying the burden and it was them who were affected the most.

             Another thing that disturbed me was the Aquino Administration’s proposed increase in 2014 budget for the CCT program to P63 Billion, which is a huge amount. A P63 Billion budget in CCT for 2014 is a lot of money. I think the money can better serve the beneficiaries, if the government would spent it to other projects for the poor, like providing them jobs and some other agricultural projects that would help them to earn and enable them to improve their standard of living. The administration has no great assurance that the said budget were equally distributed to the beneficiaries because even the way they implement the program, the way they choose the beneficiaries were not equal.

             In the case of our town, I have seen some beneficiaries who were not really poor and those who were poor who had never given the chance to be part of the program. Some of the members of the DSWD choose only those people who happened to be their relatives and ignored those people they never met. In short, the process that they used was not enough and the program was not properly implemented by the implementing agency. It was sad knowing that because of the existence of these kind of assigned people in some towns, more poor were suffering while others were enjoying the benefits they could get from the government where in fact, they do not deserve any of it.

             The anti-poverty program was good. It is a good way to reduce poverty rate in our country and since it uses education as a tool to alleviate poverty, it is also a way to reduce our unemployment rate. But increasing its budget for that huge amount was not good. A concept of corruption will be inserted. Why? It was because their basis wasn’t enough, they could not even perfectly implement the program yet they will increase the budget for it for that huge amount, which is not right for me. In proposing for higher budget, did they ever evaluate the success and failures of the program? Did the program really help the poorest of the poor? Did it take out them from poverty? I think all they have to do first is to improve their system on implementing the program. They have to fix what is needed to fix and to remove the unnecessary elements in their program. Increasing the budget will give more interest to the administration’s allies to corrupt and also the beneficiaries might be tolerated. They might just depend on government’s support and won’t aim to improve their way of living by themselves.