DAVAO CITY – The recent Asian Development Bank study that nearly P19 billion of conditional cash transfer program’s budget did not go to the poor proves that the poverty-alleviation program “is a failure”, a partylist lawmaker said.
The Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino program has a budget of at least P62 billion.
“The Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program’s leakage rate of 30% is a huge waste of people’s taxes,” said Gabriela Women’s Partylist Rep. Luzviminda Ilagan.
The leakage, Ilagan said, “bolster the call to re-channel funds allocated to the Aquino administration’s much touted poverty alleviation program directly to social services.”
Ilagan said the Makabayan bloc authored in September 2013 House Resolution 332 seeking an inquiry into the CCT program and recommending the implementation of more sustainable programs that raise the standard of living and quality of life of poor Filipino families.
“The number of poor families continues to increase in the same manner that the number of politicians who seek to benefit from the program’s implementation, exploiting poverty and cultivating mendicancy to bolster political ambitions and political patronage also increases,” Ilagan said citing latest survey results conducted by Ibon Foundation which revealed that seven out of ten families consider themselves poor.
Ilagan said it would benefit poor families more if funds were channeled directly to health and education and job creation, “instead of imposing conditionalities for meager sums.”
She said the CCT funds should be re-channeled to basic services. (davaotoday.com)
