4Ps: Breaking the shackles of poverty?

CEBU, Philippines - They say education and good health are the best gifts parents can leave their children, but with the conditions experienced by many Filipinos living below the poverty line, getting these gifts might just be too farfetched.

 Or is it?

 Arsenia Abao, 43, of Barangay Kalunasan once wondered how she could feed her six children three times a day, let alone send them all to school. The money she has been earning from selling vegetables near her home and her husband’s income of P220 a day from being an electrician was too little to provide for their basic needs.

 It was too tough a fight, she says, but it was not reason for them to give up and lose hope. She and her husband worked hard to earn a living even if it meant having to abandon other responsibilities at home and their own personal needs.

 Then came the Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program (4Ps), something Abao says is an answered prayer.

 The program is a social development strategy of the national government that provides conditional cash grants to extremely poor households to improve their health, nutrition and education particularly of children aged 0-14.

 Arsenia remembers how personnel of the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWS) went around their barangay to survey households. Some of her neighbors reportedly did not take the survey seriously, something she herself almost did if not for a gut feeling telling her to participate.

 Months after the survey, she received news that she was one of the recipients of the program. Still, she admits that she was not too enthusiastic about it, thinking they would get nothing more than a pack of noodles, sardines and rice.

 “I didn’t go directly to the orientation because I said I needed the cash like what I would be getting from selling vegetables. I thought that they would just be giving noodles and canned goods so it wouldn’t hurt much if I didn’t go,” she says in Cebuano.

 After much prodding from neighbors, however, Arsenia decided to attend the orientation and, to her surprise, was even elected as one of the program’s leaders in her barangay. After several orientations, she received a cash grant of P4,200 for her children’s education and health needs.

 Beneficiaries of the program receive P6,000 a year or P500 per month per household for health and nutrition expenses and P3,000 for one school year or 10 months or P300 per month per child for educational expenses. A maximum of three children per household is allowed.

 Arsenia’s children, now aged 21, 20, 18, 16, eight and four, have all have benefited from the program, three children at a time.

 Arsenia says that more than the financial aid, the most important thing they learned from being beneficiaries is how they developed as people through the program’s different activities.

 She says they have participated in various seminars that taught them how to engage with other people, especially with their children and spouses.

 “We were taught the rights of women and the rights of children as well,” Arsenia says, adding, they would also need to share what they learned with the community.

 Before doing so, her family makes it a point to practice at home what they have learned. Arsenia says what she has learned in the seminars have helped her especially in disciplining her children without inflicting pain through corporal punishment.

 She shares that one of her teenage kids kept on running away from home before because she would always spank her each time the child would hang out with her friends. This would reportedly spur bigger fights within the household.

 This time, however, the situation has tempered because they have learned to communicate more properly, even with their neighbors.

 Like Arsenia, Mary Joy Maribojoc, 37, of Barangay T. Padilla, Cebu City says the program has benefitted her family in the areas of health and education. Joy also has six children, all of whom have also been recipients of the program.

 Her income from doing her aunt’s laundry plus the allowance another aunt in another country sends her for taking care of their grandmother is what she uses to send her kids to school, Joy says.

 “This was never enough,” she says, until the program came along. 

 When President Benigno Aquino III was in Cebu, Joy says they have requested to extend the coverage of the program such that it continues to cover the school expenses of children beneficiaries until they finish high school.

 The cash grant is only for children 14 years old and below, but at 14 years old, a child is only second year high school.

 Joy says they are very grateful for the program, especially with DSWD’s efforts to reach out to more Filipino families.  

 “Aside from the program, DSWD has been very active in responding to our concerns and helping the community,” she says.

 In his State of the Nation Address, Aquino says that the program is one of the government’s means in identifying the poorest of the poor families and investing in them being the country’s greatest resource.

 Aquino shares that “of the two million families registered with the Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program, 1.6 million are already receiving their conditional cash transfers.”

 “I am optimistic that we will reach our target of 1.3 million additional beneficiaries this year. With a compliance rate of 92 percent, millions of mothers are already getting regular check-ups at public health centers, millions of babies are being vaccinated against common diseases, and millions of school-aged children are now attending classes,” the President says.

 Aquino says that he wishes for support to have the program expanded.

Criticisms

 Despite the positive feedback, however, the program is not running without criticisms.

 In an article on Bulatlat.com, urban poor group Kadamay says the program is “deceitful”.

 A study published by the Poverty Reduction, Equity and Growth Network (PEGNet) entitled Conditional Cash Transfer Programmes and their Impact on Poverty Reduction: Lessons from Mexico and El Salvador reveals that the conditional cash transfer could not reduce poverty. 

 “…CCT programmes are not a panacea against poverty and social exclusion and its limitations should be addressed by creating other strategies which focus on more comprehensive policy reforms such as the creation of productive options, temporary employment programmes, access to micro-credit and micro-entrepreneurial opportunities, among others, ” the report reads.

 During the implementation of Mexico’s CCT Oportunidades from 1998 to 2009, the depth of poverty was said to have been reduced by 30 percent. On the other hand, El Salvador’s Red Solidaria’s effects on poverty reduction could still not be determined as its implementation is still relatively recent. The report, however, noted that enrollment in preschools and elementary schools have increased by 23 percent and six percent, respectively. But, the direct correlation between the reduction in the national incidence of poverty and the increase in children’s enrollment rates with the CCT program would be hard to prove, the Bulatlat article reads.

 The study says a loophole of the CCT is that the program does not invest in “human capital” by honing the parents’ skills, such as in agriculture, to enable them to earn a decent income after the program lapses. No effective exit strategy is in place to prevent them “from falling back into the poverty trap.”

 Kadamay Vice Chairman Carlito Badion says reducing poverty in the Philippines “still boils down to adequate social services and jobs creation, and more importantly, a ‘national development strategy’.”

 However, the 2011 budget has further slashed appropriations for health, economic services, and public infrastructure. “…we fail to see how the government plans to meet these criteria and make the CCT program meaningful in the long run,” Badion says.

 Meanwhile, the Bulatlat article also cites the Ibon Foundation as saying the country might not have the ‘human capital’ to begin with.

 “Filipinos have long suffered from insufficient and poor quality education and health facilities, which may not be able to absorb the additional users. Further straining limited classrooms and teachers could drag down the quality of instruction even for existing students, and, likewise, with overburdened health facilities and personnel. In such circumstances the intended health improvements or learning outcomes for beneficiaries may not materialize,” an Ibon report reads.

At present, the country is short of 153,000 classrooms, 13.2 millions desks and 104,000 teachers at elementary and high school levels. Of the 42,000 barangays (villages) in the country, only 16,200 have barangay health centers, while 2,200 of the supposed 2,300 rural health units have not been improved for some ten years now. The numbers of government medical practitioners, such as doctors (around 3,050) dentists (1,900), nurses (4,600) and midwives (16,800) has not kept pace with the growing population, Bulatlat says. JMO  (FREEMAN)