4Ps is DSWD’s top program – Sec. Erwin
Imee: ‘Level up’ the poverty reduction strategy
SENATOR Imee Marcos presided over the hybrid briefing of Finance Subcommittee 1 on the proposed budget of the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) and attached agencies for 2023.
The proposed DSWD budget amounted to P194.63 billion under the National Expenditure Program (NEP) 2023.
Sen. Marcos proposed that the agency should level up its “Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program” or 4Ps, which is the agency’s top program in terms of allocation.
The lady senator said that under the law, 4Ps is a poverty reduction strategy that provides grants to extremely poor households to improve their health, nutrition, and education.
She said the agency should study revising the law’s implementing rules and regulations (IRR) to concentrate on nutrition because of the high food prices.
On education, Marcos said it is time to expand this field from the high school level to vocational-technical education to prepare and up-skill the beneficiaries.
“These are the things that we have to look at in the IRR – still compliant with the law,” Marcos said, citing the Mexican experience that levels up the conditional cash transfer to include social and productive inclusion as an exit strategy.
DSWD Secretary Erwin Tulfo, who was present during the hearing, told the Senate panel that the bulk of DSWD’s proposed allocation, amounting to P182.7 billion, would finance the agency’s services and programs in various areas.
Tulfo further said that the 4Ps is the department’s top program in terms of allocation – followed by the grant of social pension to indigent senior citizens; the agency’s protective services for families in difficult situations.
The DSWD secretary is confident that the department will be able to deliver well the needs of the people in terms of proper allocations and programs.
