MANILA (UCAN): A report from the Philippine Commission on Audit [COA], found that a state-funded welfare scheme, providing cash handouts to millions of poor families in the country, has failed to lift them out of poverty over the past years.
The report, released on October 13, stated that 90 per cent of the country’s 4.3 million poorest families who receive monthly allowances under the Pantawid Pamilya Pilipino Programme [Bridging Programme for the Filipino Family], also known as 4Ps, remain poor.
The programme is a cash transfer arrangement funded by the Department of Social Welfare and Development. Families living below the national poverty line [earning less than 12,030 pesos or $1,657 per month] are entitled to receive 5,000-6,000 peso [$690 to $826] per month.
In 2019, former president, Rodrigo Duterte, signed the 4Ps programme into law aiming to eradicate extreme poverty in the Philippines by addressing the health and education of the poorest families in 79 provinces across the country.
The report found that the situation of the poorest families remains the same despite receiving cash grants for years.
We should really teach them [the poor] how to ‘catch fish,’ not only give them fish. The fat amount spent on the project could have been allotted to strengthen job opportunities in the country or the health care system
Miguel Datian
“This shows that achieving breakage of inter-generational poverty is still minimal despite the fat amount given as dole outs to millions of poor families,” COA representative, Miguel Datian, said, adding that it proved that government dole-out projects had “minimal” impact on poverty alleviation.
“We should really teach them [the poor] how to ‘catch fish,’ not only give them fish. The fat amount spent on the project could have been allotted to strengthen job opportunities in the country or the health care system,” he added.
A 4Ps beneficiary, Librado Grajo, a 32-year-old mother of two from Tandang Sora in Quezon City in the capital Manila, said her five-member family struggles to survive on low income and an insufficient cash grant.
Grajo, a laundry worker, and her husband, Jose, a 37-year-old taxi driver, earn about 12,000 pesos [$1,650] per month. They receive about 5,900 pesos [$813] from the government.
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“We cannot survive with the amount. We spend mostly on food,” Grajo said.
Nevertheless she said, “We’re still thankful that at least we receive something from the government. Instead of putting the amount in their pockets, at least they go to the poor.”
The programme required a huge amount of finance which we did not have then and now. It is not sustainable and it is loan driven. Where did all the billions go if more than 90 per cent of its beneficiaries are still poor?
JC Punungbayan
The government’s antipoverty programme received a total of 780.71 billion pesos [$188 billion] in funding between 2019 to 2022, the report said. The amount spent contributed to the country’s ballooning external debt, which stood at $772.9 billion in 2021, a 17.77 per cent increase from 2020, according to the Department of Finance.
Experts had predicted the outcome of the debt-funded programme.
“The programme required a huge amount of finance which we did not have then and now. It is not sustainable and it is loan driven. Where did all the billions go if more than 90 per cent of its beneficiaries are still poor?” JC Punungbayan, a professor of Economics at the University of the Philippines, asked while alluding to the fact that by the tail-end of August 2010, the Asian Development Bank [ADB] had approved a US$400 million loan [22.28 billion pesos, $3.1 billion].
The Catholic Bishops’ Commission on Population and Development recently cited ADB data which noted that 23.7 per cent of the country’s 110 million population were living below the poverty line in 2021.
“The programme has been in place for several years, consumed billions of funds. Clearly, dole-out projects like this are not the solution,” the commission’s secretary, Father Carlos De Castro, pointed out.
Father Castro said the grant was used to build patronage politics in poor communities where politicians “invest” money in order to get votes during the elections.
“Many politicians want this programme because it builds their image of ‘generosity’ to the people even if it is government money,” he added.
