By Vanne Elaine Terrazola
The Senate committee on social justice has urged the approval of the measure that would institutionalize the government's Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program (4Ps).
Senator Antonio Trillanes IV ( Jun Ryan Arañas/ MANILA BULLETIN)
The panel has endorsed for plenary deliberations Senate Bill 2117, which seeks to make permanent the 4Ps being implemented by the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD).
The program provides for conditional cash grants to some 4.4-million poorest families in the country to improve the health, nutrition and the education of children.
Sen. Antonio Trillanes IV, vice chair of the social justice committee, in his recent sponsorship speech said the 4Ps remain to be the "most wanted" and "effective" poverty alleviation program of the government.
Its institutionalization, he said, will "ensure the sustained implementation and continued insulation from political patronage that weaken its impact."
Under SB 2117, conditional cash transfers to poor families shall continue for a maximum of seven years.
The bill also increases the health and nutrition benefits from the current P650 to P750 per month "to compensate for the rising prices" of goods, Trillanes said
Aside from these, conditional cash grant per child shall also be raised from P500 to P700 per month and be given for 10 months every year at most.
The bill also seeks to provide livelihood and employment assistance to the 4Ps beneficiaries.
To ensure proper implementation of the program, Trillanes added an oversight body shall be established to oversee the program, and there shall also have a regular review and documentation of the beneficiaries every three years.
The measure was a consolidation of eight Senate bills and six resolutions.
Authors of the SB 2117 were Senate President Pro Tempore Ralph Recto, Minority Leader Franklin Drilon, social jstice committee chair Sen. Leila de Lima, and Senators Loren Legarda, Joel Villanueva, Juan Edgardo "Sonny" Angara, Paolo Benigno "Bam" Aquino IV, Risa Hontiveros, Joseph Victor Ejercito, Sherwin Gatchalian, Cynthia Villar, and Nancy Binay.