The House Committee on Poverty Alleviation on Tuesday approved a bill which aims to reduce poverty by providing social assistance to poor families by giving monetary support up to five years.
The committee, chaired by Rep. Raymond Democrito Mendoza, proposed the “Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program Act” (4Ps) which will provide conditional cash grants to the poorest families to improve the health, nutrition, and the education of children.
The 4Ps bill mandates the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) to choose qualified household beneficiaries using a standardized targeting system and revalidate the targeting of beneficiaries every three years.
The qualified household beneficiary will be provided with a conditional cash transfer equivalent to P600 per month for health and nutrition expenses totaling P6, 000 per year.
Under the bill, a maximum of three children per qualified household beneficiary shall be given conditional cash grants for education expenses of P300 per month per children enrolled in day-care, kindergarten, elementary for a 10-month school year, and P500 per month per child enrolled in secondary school for a 10-month school year.
All the grants shall be released every two months.
A Local Verification Committee (LVC) shall be created in every municipality or city to ensure that the initial list of beneficiaries will satisfy the eligibility requirements set forth under the Act.
The LVC will be composed of local government unit representatives; a midwife from the barangay, a representative of a DSWD- accredited civil society organization, and a school head as designated by the Department of Education.
The funds, required to carry out the provisions of the Act, shall be charged against those authorized in the current and subsequent General Appropriations Act.
The appropriation shall continue until the program has covered 60 percent of the total number of extremely poor households in the country, as may be determined by the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) at the time of the enactment of the act.
The bill penalizes any person conspiring with public officials to receive the cash grant. The penalty is imprisonment of one month to six months, or a fine of P10,000 to P20,000, or both imprisonment and fine, at the discretion of the court. | (Tina Joyce Laceda – PTV)
