The House of Representatives has adopted a resolution urging the Department of Social Welfare and Development to lift the suspension of registration of new beneficiaries of the Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program or 4Ps, which took effect in July 2016.
House Resolution 1522, authored by Rep. Roger Mercado of Southern Leyte, aims to address the program’s potential poor beneficiaries who remain unserved and unassisted. The measure also worries that the approved budget to cover 4.4-million households will not be fully disbursed.
It also calls on the DSWD to be more effective in delivering social protection and welfare services to the 4Ps families and to improve the targeting of beneficiaries to lessen fund leakage for the program.
The 4Ps, conceived in the previous administration, is a human development program of the national government that seeks to provide social protection and welfare services to poor families and alleviate poverty.
Congress approved a budget of P72.1152 billion for the 4Ps for the year 2017.
DSWD Undersecretary Maria Lourdes Turalde-Jarabe previously told a hearing conducted by the House committee on poverty alleviation that there were about 4.3-million household-beneficiaries as of Dec. 5, 2017.
Turalde-Jarabe said the discrepancy between the number of active household-beneficiaries and the targeted 4.4-million households was due to the suspension of payouts, owing to some families not complying with the program conditions and the suspension of registration of new beneficiaries.
The suspension was brought about by DSWD’s need to resolve operational problems, particularly the exclusion and inclusion errors in identifying 4Ps beneficiaries, the undersecretary added.
Turalde-Jarabe said 4Ps the suspension began in July 2016 through a memorandum signed by then-Social Welfare secretary Judy Taguiwalo.
