To adjust to inflation, the increase in cash allowances for the Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program (4Ps) is expected to be implemented in 2026.
During a committee hearing at the House of Representatives, National Economic and Development Authority Secretary Arsenio M. Balisacan revealed that a consensus was made to increase the cash grants for 4Ps beneficiaries.
For the beneficiaries with a child enrolled in daycare, their cash aid would be increased from P300 to P350 per month, while for those in junior high school, it would be from P500 to P600, and for senior high school, from P700 to P800.
Meanwhile, the health and nutrition grants will be increased from P750 to P850 as rice subsidies of P600 will remain the same.
Balisacan also said that the monthly cash grant for pregnant and lactating mother beneficiaries for the first 1,000 days of their children’s life was set at P350.
This would increase the total cash grant for all the schemes under the 4Ps to P3,550 from P2,850, he added.
“We have produced a study for the adjustment of grants for inflation to ensure that the purchasing power of the grant when it was created would remain the same and for that the decision taken in the fiscal consolidation is the adjustment be made in 2026 for the inflation because this study was prepared after almost already the completion of National Expenditure Program,” Balisacan stated.
Based on the proposed NEP, the budget for 4Ps is expected to get higher at around P114 billion in 2025 from the P106 billion allocated to the program this year.
According to the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD), around 4.4 million households nationwide are active members of the government’s conditional cash transfer program.
As of the first quarter of the year, the DSWD has identified 700,000 households that are now self-sufficient and could, therefore, graduate from the 4Ps.
The Philippine Statistics Authority reported that the country's headline inflation declined to 3.7 percent in June from 3.9 percent in May, after rising for four months, due to the easing of energy and transport costs.