Conditional Cash Transfer Program in the Philippines: Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino

Maryjoy Mella, Floren Camille Osido and Lemarie Suing

INTRODUCTION
Dr. Virola (2011), Secretary General of the National Statistical Coordination Board, said in his
presentation of the 2009 Official Poverty Statistics that a Filipino needed PhP 974 in 2009 to meet his or
her monthly food needs and PhP 1,403 to stay out of poverty. In 2009, a family of five needed PhP 4, 869
monthly income to meet food needs and PhP 7, 017 to stay out of poverty. Results of the latest Social
Weather Stations (SWS) survey also revealed that one in every five Filipino households, or an estimated
4.3 million families, experienced involuntary hunger in the third quarter of the year 2011
(http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/84129/more-filipinos-going-hungry-survey-shows).
The Conditional Cash Transfer (CCT) programs serves as the government’s answers to the pressing
issues regarding poverty. Calvo (2011) defines the CCT as programs that provide cash benefits to finance
the basic needs and foster investment in human capital to extremely poor households. These benefits are
conditioned on certain behaviors, usually related to investments in nutrition, health, and education.

The emergence of CCT programs occurred during the late 1990s, with Mexico’s innovative Progresa
(now Opurtunidades) program emerging as one of the earliest schemes in 1997. The evidences
highlighting the effectiveness of Progresa motivated a rise in similar programs across Latin America.
Throughout the late 1990s and into the early part of the new century, CCT programs were implemented in
Honduras, Brazil and Nicaragua.

CCT programs are presently being implemented in several Latin American countries including Brazil,
Chile, Colombia, Jamaica, Mexico, and several more. Indonesia and Pakistan are only some of the Asian
countries which employ the CCT programs as a major tool of their social policy. In general, these
programs provide money and financial assistance to poor families under the condition that those transfers
are used as an investment on their children’s’ human capital, such as regular school attendance and basic
preventive health care. The main mission of most CCT programs is to prevent inter-generational
transference of poverty, that is to say, investing in young children and providing them with the provisions
necessary for better opportunities in the future.

Statement of the Problem

This study aims to assert the advantages, disadvantages and effectiveness of the Pantawid Pamilyang
Pilipino Program (4Ps), the conditional cash transfer program in the Philippines, in addressing the poverty
health care and basic education problems in the Philippines. The researchers strongly agree that the 4Ps
can help alleviate, not intensify, the problem of poverty in the Philippines. Furthermore, the researchers
believe that the 4Ps provides not only short term benefits but also long term assistance necessary for the
improvement of the Philippine society.

Objectives
In respect to the previously stated problem, the researchers hope to accomplish the following objectives:
1. To assert the advantages of the 4Ps in addressing the poverty, health care, and basic education
problems in the Philippines.
2. To discuss the disadvantages of the 4Ps as asserted by various groups and experts who have studied the
program.
3. To confirm the beneficial effects of 4Ps by reviewing early assessments of the program.
4. To classify the challenges of the 4Ps and outline proposals by various sectors to improve it.
CONDITIONAL CASH TRANSFER IN THE PHILIPPINES
Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program (4Ps)
A Conditional Cash Transfer Program is a program implemented by the government where money (cash
grants) is given to eligible beneficiaries given that these beneficiaries comply with certain conditions such
as nutrition, education, family development sessions, and other such services offered by the government.
It is a means of helping the beneficiaries through provision of social and medical assistance and
increasing the investment in human capital for society by providing education to those who cannot afford
it.
Since 2007, the Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program (4Ps) of the Philippines is the conditional cash
transfer program implemented by the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD), along
with cooperative partner institutions such as the Department of Education, Department of Health,
Department of the Interior and Local Government, and various other government institutions. The 4Ps
was patterned after the conditional cash transfer programs in Latin American and African countries which
have been proven successful as a poverty reduction and social development measure (DSWD, 2011).

The 4Ps is targeted at chronic poor households with children aged 0-14 years old who are located in poor
areas. The cash grants range from PhP500 to PhP1,400 per household per month, depending on the
number of eligible children. At the core of a CCT program is a social contract where a state provides
financial resources to a family in exchange for that family’s fulfillment of certain tasks such as ensuring
that its children’s attendance in school, regular visits to community health centers, participation in
government-sponsored feeding programs and attendance in more specific trainings, to name a few
(Somera, 2010). And according to Fernadez & Olfindo (2011), today, the program is seen more broadly
as “a vehicle for enhancing coordination within the government in assisting the poor and for increasing
the effectiveness of social protection programs.”

Though statistics have shown that the increase in the poverty incidence among population in 2003 to
2009, from 24.9-26.5%, is not so substantial, it is still an increase, and 26.5% implies that more than a
quarter of the whole Philippine population is below the poverty threshold. The 4Ps has been created to
address that problem of poverty and inequality in the country.

REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE

Advantages of the 4Ps
The “CCT programs address both future poverty, by fostering human capital accumulation among the
young as a means of breaking the intergenerational transmission of poverty and current poverty, by
providing income support for consumption in the short run” (Rawlings & Rubio, 2005, p. 33). Indeed, the
main objective of the 4Ps and other CCT programs is to prevent inter-generational transference of poverty
and help break the infinite cycle of poverty by providing the children the suitable educational and health
assistance so as to help them develop the facilities for a better future. Investing in children’s human
capital and ensuring that they grow into educated and healthy adults, is the equivalent of teaching them
how to fish. Healthy, educated children ultimately have more choices in life and are able to become
productive members of society (Bloom, 2008).

Furthermore, the implementation of the 4Ps lessens the incidence of child labor and other forms of child
abuse. In cases of the other CCT programs implemented in other countries, there are two interrelated
mechanisms found to help combat child labor. First, through their cash subsidy component, schooling’s
directs costs are reduced, thereby inducing families to send their children to school, as opposed to work.
Second, these programs require families to have their children attend school, 85% of the school days per
month in the case of the 4Ps, in exchange to cash subsidy. This requirement increases the time children
spend in school and reduces the time they can allocate to work (Gee, 2010). There is a noticeable increase
in the number of enrollees in many elementary schools in areas included in the scope of the 4Ps, and
kindergarten classes were being established to answer the need of the community in compliance to the
condition of sending 0-5 years old children in day care centers and preschools (DSWD, 2009).
Subsequently, if collaborative compliance to this requirement of the 4Ps is ensured, the literacy rate of the
children is also expected to increase.

In the long run, the 4Ps as well as the other CCT programs, aims to establish social equality and mobility
through education. As mentioned by Gundlach, Navarro de Pablo, & Weiser (2010), the centrality of
education in poverty-reduction policies stems from the belief that education is a powerful equalizer and
the main asset of most people. Sen & Dreze (as cited by Calvo, 2011) incorporates the notion of
inequality and social exclusion as obstacles for the construction of a system of rights and opportunities.
Accordingly, people are poor not just because of a lack of economic resources to satisfy basic needs, but
also because they live in a social, economic and political system which does not provide equality of
opportunities. The 4Ps intend to provide the basis for this much needed equality by providing the poor
people with the education that they could not access otherwise.

Malnutrition, which is prevalent among extremely poor families, is also expected to decrease. Since it is a
prime requirement for beneficiaries to avail of the health services being offered in their health centers
such as pre- and post-natal services, vaccination, and periodical check-ups before acquiring their money
grants, the health and nutrition of the poor families are safeguarded.

The 4Ps also promotes gender empowerment seeing as the responsibility of managing the cash grants are
given to the mother. This decision is based on the experience in CCT programs showing that women
make relatively better use of grant money by using it to purchase food and/or other necessities such as
medicines, transportations and school supplies.
In the nutshell, the underlying concept of the CCT programs, and of the 4Ps as wells, is: once individuals
are healthy, better fed, and educated, they will be able to overcome poverty in the long run (Valencia,
2009).

Disadvantages of the 4Ps

Like any other government program, the 4Ps also have its disadvantages that may encumber its helpful
benefits. One of the most crucial characteristic of the 4Ps and other CCT programs implemented in other
countries is its being a ‘demand-side’ intervention instead of being a ‘supply-side’ intervention. That is, in
order to be considered as a beneficiary of the program, one must concede with the government’s demands
and conditionalities (Coady & Parker, 2002). This is remarkably notable in the conditions concerning
education and health services where the beneficiaries being brought into the education and health services
system instead of expanding the education and health systems in order to reach them.

Furthermore, as previously mentioned, poverty in the country is not only caused by the lack of
economical resources, but also because of socio-economic and political factors that prevent the equality
and distribution of resources. Although the 4Ps aims to provide the poor with the education which is,
otherwise, inaccessible, it does not directly answer the socio-economic and political problems that are the
primary cause of poverty. In the case of the 4Ps in the Philippines, it does not answer the issues regarding
the political and economic elite families. And poverty can only be totally alleviated if there are programs
that could target its roots.
The 4Ps will also encounter some difficulties in achieving support from the other social classes, mainly
because it does not benefit middle-income groups which have also been steadily affected by limited
universal services and decreases in employment (Cuesta, 2007). These middle-income groups are also
suffering from issues of poverty and limited access to educational and health benefits, but are not
included in the target population of the 4Ps. The 4Ps is programmed to help only the extremely poor.

Another major disadvantage of the 4Ps implementation is that it requires a huge amount of finance which
we do not have at the present. The 4Ps is a loan driven program, much of the funds constituting the
conditional cash grants given to beneficiaries are generated from loans abroad, particularly from the
United States. By the tail-end of August 2010, the Asian Development Bank (ADB) approved a US$400
million loan specifically for the 4Ps which will run from 2011 to 2014. This comprises 45.2 per cent of
the total cost of US$884.2 million, where US$484 million serves as the government’s counterpart. Having
ADB’s US$400 million in addition to the World Bank’s US$405 million, makes two-thirds of the whole
4Ps from 2009 to 2014 comprised of loans (Somera, 2010, p. 6). Arguments against the 4Ps point out that
despite the large amounts of financial resources needed to implement the program; it does not generate
guaranteed returns to the economy as much as infrastructure projects like construction of roads, bridges,
and railways do.

CONCLUSION
The Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Programs poses many appealing objectives, goals and benefits for the
poor families that comprises most of the Philippine’s population. The 4Ps is a good example of
strengthening the government’s capability of distributing the country’s resources to those who are
extremely in need. It is undeniable that there are many poor households that will benefit from the said
program, and that the program covers the basic needs that otherwise would go unmet. Likewise, the
government’s effort in making the country’s educational and health services system inclusive is a huge
step towards social mobility and equality. The researchers feel strongly about the 4Ps’ principle that well-
fed and educated citizens are imperative for a productive country and society.

However, it is also undeniable that the 4Ps, as well as the other CCT programs being implemented in
other countries, is not the perfect solution. There are many insufficiencies that the program might face in
the long run of its implementation. And as a new policy here in the Philippines, the 4Ps will certainly
need further revisions and studies in the future.

Nevertheless, the researchers believe that for any government program to succeed, the government and
the citizens must arrive in a peaceful consensus. The government’s duty is to secure that the people’s
needs are provided and their rights are protected. And the citizens, in return, must use their full capacity
to be productive and help the country. The researchers believe that the implementation of the 4Ps is a
good example of the concurring responsibilities of the government and the citizens.

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