DAVAO CITY – Lawmakers from Gabriela Women’s Party questions the government’s poverty alleviation program (Conditional Cash Transfer, CCT) as it is “bound to burden Filipinos with loan and interest payments for several decades.”
Representative Luzviminda Ilagan said, “after more than eight years of implementation, the government’s CCT program has not made a dent on people’s poverty.”
“There is no clear benefit that the poor people felt, yet we are burdened on the government debt [from international loans],” Ilagan said.
The Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) allocated P62.6 billion for the CCT which will be implemented up to year 2016.
GWP claims that since its implementation in 2008, the government has already spent some P253.13 billion for the program.
Reports from the Annual Poverty Indicators Survey conducted by the Philippine Statistics Authority shows the poverty rate in the country remained unchanged since 2006 which is at the 25-26 percentiles while the funds accumulation from the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank reached to $905 million.
Rep. Emmi De Jesus also pointed out that the government’s debt in ADB alone will not be paid even after the President’s term.
“We will not be able to pay our debts because the last payment will be on 2035,” she said.
She added that if the government wants to alleviate poverty, it should focus on job creation, land reform, and national industrialization. (davaotoday.com)
