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Manila Bulletin devider Philippines devider National devider Use 'realistic standards' in removing families from 4Ps, Romero tells DSWD

Use 'realistic standards' in removing families from 4Ps, Romero tells DSWD

Published Aug 18, 2023 11:52 am

At A Glance

  • 1-Pacman Party-list Rep. Mikee Romero said the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) should have "realistic standards" in delisting families from the Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program or 4Ps. 

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1-Pacman Party-list Rep. Mikee Romero (Facebook)

The chairman of the House Committee on Poverty Alleviation said the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) should have "realistic standards" in delisting families from the Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program or 4Ps.

1-Pacman Party-list Rep. Mikee Romero made this call Friday, Aug. 18 after learning from DSWD Secretary Rex Gatchalian that the agency was still in the middle of its "reassessment" of over a million Filipino families that had earlier been dropped from 4Ps.

"The DSWD should have realistic standards in removing beneficiary-families from 4Ps," read a statement from Romero, a former deputy speaker.

During the House Committee on Appropriations' deliberations on the DSWD's proposed 2024 budget on Thursday, Aug. 17, Gatchalian said they have imposed a moratorium on delisting families from 4Ps.

He also said that they have implemented a new method in order to determine whether or not some 1.4 million previously delisted families were truly non-poor anymore.

"[We] all agreed in the department to use another tool that is inside the department for years already. It's called the Social Welfare Development Indicators (SWDI)," Gatchalian said.

Gatchalian said that unlike the Proxy Means Test (PMT) that was very "very math-based and table-oriented", the SWDI had more "heart" into it.

"Mayroon din ho siyang case management na kasama (It involves case management)...iI's a Proxy Means Test that puts emotional co-efficience to it; may puso ho siya (It has heart)," he told the appropriations panel.

"Right now we are doing the Proxy Means SWDI test to the 1.4 million Filipino families to make sure that they actually are poor or not poor. By end of September, malalaman kung ilan mede-delist (We'll know how many will be delisted)," added Gatchalian.

For his part, Romero said: "Let us make sure that the exiting families have really improved their financial status and some of their children have finished college and are now employed."

4Ps is the national government's flagship poverty alleviation program. “Its funding in the annual national budget is good for 4.4 million families. Today, 3.9 million families are considered 'active,' of which 3.2 million are receiving financial assistance," the 1-Pacman Party-list solon said.

He pointed out that based on a recent Social Weather Stations (SWS) survey, 45 percent of Filipinos, or 12.5 million families, considered themselves poor during the second quarter of 2023.

According to SWS, of the 12.5 million families, two million were “newly poor,” 1.6 million were “usually poor,” while 8.8 million were “always poor.”

Related Tags

Rex Gatchalian Mikee Romero DSWD PANTAWID PAMILYA
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