Philippine Daily Inquirer
5:29 pm | Monday, June 24th, 2013
Budget Secretary Florencio B. Abad INQUIRER FILE PHOTO
MANILA, Philippines — With the battle against poverty far from being won, the Aquino administration aims to continually augment its budget for conditional cash transfers (CCT) until practically all the estimated 4.6 million poor families in the country are covered by 2015.
This was disclosed by Budget Secretary Florencio Abad, who said the Aquino administration would spend more on subsidies to poor families in the belief that the CCT program is an effective poverty-eradication tool.
“Yes, the budget for the CCT will continue to increase until hopefully all the 4.6 million families benefit from the program by 2015. This is what the President [Aquino] wants,” Abad told the Philippine Daily Inquirer.
For this year, the government has set aside P44 billion from its national budget for the CCT program. The amount covers 3.9 million poor families selected by the Department of Social Welfare and Development.
Under the program, household beneficiaries receive monthly cash subsidies for five years in exchange for their commitment to send children to public schools, and to have the mothers and the children regularly visit public health centers.
The amount of monthly subsidy per family could go as high as P1,200. A household beneficiary is entitled for P300 worth of subsidy per child for a maximum of three children and another P300 for the mother.
An immediate objective of the program is to increase the school-participation rate among children of poor households. The long-term objective is to increase employment opportunities for them so they eventually lift their families out of poverty.
Multilateral institutions, led by the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank, support the CCT. Citing experiences in some developing countries, such as those in Latin America, the institutions said the CCT has been effective in significantly reducing poverty incidence.
Meanwhile, the first batch of CCT beneficiaries, estimated at 800,000 families, will graduate from the program in 2014, when they shall have completed the five-year duration by then, according to Abad.
However, Abad said economic officials have been considering a proposal from the multilateral agencies to extend the CCT program to a certain number of years to ensure the children of household beneficiaries graduate not only from elementary but from high school.
“The proposal is to extend the program in a way that helps ensure the children are able to graduate from high school so they can get better employment opportunities,” Abad said.
He said concerned government officials already have been seriously studying the proposal.
Despite its robust economic growth, the Philippines continues to suffer from one of the highest poverty rates among emerging Asian economies. Poverty incidence in the country stood at 27.9 percent in the first semester of 2012.
Economists said growth of the Philippine economy has so far benefited mostly the rich and the middle class. Nonetheless, many of them agree that programs such as the CCT will help make the benefits of a growing economy trickle down to the poor.
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Tags: Benigno Aquino III , CCT program , DBM , DSWD , Education , Florencio Abad , Government , Poverty , poverty alleviation , state budget
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