SOCIAL Welfare Secretary Erwin Tulfo yesterday said around half a million poor families (500,000) are expected to be included in the government’s Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program (4Ps) beneficiary list starting January next year.
The new recipients will start receiving their conditional cash aid once the new 4Ps list is released, which is scheduled also in January 2023, Tulfo said in a press conference at the sidelines of the distribution of the livelihood and cash assistance to “Sama Bajaus” under the DSWD’s Assistance to Individuals in Crisis Situation (AICS) in Zamboanga City.
He said the 500,000 new 4Ps members replaced the previous beneficiaries who have already “graduated” from the program.
He said the latest batch of beneficiaries is a combination of solo parents, indigenous peoples (IPs), farmers and fisherfolks, among others.
“If we remove 500, we bring in another 500. Around January is the latest. We will make sure that it is across the board — there are solo parents, IPs, farmers, fisherfolk, everybody,” he said.
Tulfo said the DSWD has initially eyed the removal of around 1.2 million to 1.3 million households that have supposedly graduated from 4Ps, but upon further verification, only the estimated 500,000 families were removed from the list while the more than 700,000 households were reinstated.
He said the 4Ps data was based, among others, on the Listahanan list that was started in 2019 to identify the poor households in the country.
Tulfo said some of the beneficiaries graduated in 2019 but due to the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic, had to be reinstated as some of them lost their sources of livelihood or jobs.
Others, he added, were reinstated because they have children who were still in school, particularly senior high school.
Tulfo said cleansing of the 4Ps list will continue to ensure that only deserving indigent beneficiaries receive the monthly cash aid.
He said undeserving households should be stricken off the list and cited as an example the case of 4Ps beneficiaries who use their subsidy for vices such as drinking, or “sold” their automated teller machine cards where the cash aid is deposited, instead of using the funds for the needs of their children.
The 4Ps program currently benefits around 4.4 million household nationwide.
