DEPUTY Speaker David Suarez of Quezon yesterday said he may file a bill proposing the provision of a supplemental budget to address the P9 billion deficit in the Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program (4Ps) which he said was caused by a P13 billion cut made in the program’s funding.
“A supplemental budget can address the 4Ps crisis created by Sen. (Imee) Marcos’ realignment of P13 billion from the program to other social amelioration endeavors of the government that left 843,00 families or four million poor Filipinos without financial support,” Suarez said in a statement.
Suarez added: “Hindi kaya ng sikmura natin na tiisin ang apat na milyong Pilipino na hindi nakakatanggap ng kanilang pondo sa 4Ps na mandato ng isang batas. Hindi dapat lalong lumala ang level ng kanilang paghihirap dahil may mga buwan o taong hindi nila natatanggap ang tulong na dapat sana ay para sa kanila (We can’t stomach that four million Filipinos won’t receive funds from the 4Ps which is mandated by law. Their poverty level should not worsen because there are months or years that they don’t receive financial assistance).”
Rep. Jil Bongalon (PL, Ako Bicol) last month revealed that almost 900,000 households or 4.3 million “poorest of the poor” Filipinos did not receive financial assistance worth P13 billion from the 4Ps of the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) because of a budget realignment made by Marcos in favor of the Assistance to Individuals in Crisis Situation (AICS) and other DSWD programs.
In a hearing of the House Committees on Public Accounts and on Social Services on the privilege speech delivered by Rep. Jonathan Clement Abalos (PL, 4Ps) on the realignment, DSWD Secretary Rex Gatchalian confirmed the realignment of P13 billion to programs such as AICS, CALAHISIDS and quick response to calamities.
Marcos has earlier tagged as “malicious” the accusation of some congressmen that she slashed the P13 billion from the 4Ps in favor of the AICS.
She has said that during the September 2022 hearings for the 2023 proposed national budget, the DSWD admitted that it has spent only 45 percent of the 4Ps budget, and the chances of disbursing the remaining allotment of P8 billion was already slim as it was already the last quarter of the year.
“In order to avoid the threatened return of the unspent 4Ps allotment, I recommended that the balance of P8 billion instead be realigned to quickly implementable DSWD projects. So, it was divided among supplemental feeding, KALAHI-CIDSS (Kapit-Bisig Laban sa Kahirapan-Comprehensive and Integrated Delivery of Social Services), Quick Response Fund for disasters, and AICS,” she said back in February.
The House raised Marcos’ budget cut after she demanded that congressmen disclose the source of the P26.7 billion funding for the DSWD’s Ayuda sa Kapos ang Kita Project (AKAP), saying billions were slashed from the retirement pensions for military and uniformed personnel, retirement pays and benefits for government workers, and for the welfare of overseas Filipino workers in the 2024 national budget.
The senator questioned the AKAP budget in the previous hearings of the Senate Committee on Electoral Reforms and Revision of Codes on the alleged pay-offs related to the people’s initiative for Charter change, saying the funds could have been used to buy signatures, an allegation that was denied and denounced by the House leadership.
Suarez said that when the 2023 national budget was approved in the House of Representatives, the 4Ps funding was complete and intact, stressing that the program “is not just another amelioration program of the DSWD that you can realign (the) budget whenever you want. It is based on a law.”
He said the objective of Republic Act No. 11310 or the 4Ps Act “is to reduce poverty incidence in the country by providing conditional cash transfers to poor households for a maximum period of seven years, to improve their health, nutrition and education.”
