House lawmaker joins call to add P9-billion budget to 4Ps

FILE PHOTO: Beneficiaries of 4Ps or the Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program wait for their turn to receive financial assistance. Photo from DSWD’s Facebook page

MANILA, Philippines — A House of Representatives lawmaker said Tuesday that Congress should pass a supplemental budget to offset the funding removed from the government’s conditional cash transfer program.

House Assistant Majority Leader and Ako Bicol Party-list Rep. Raul Angelo Bongalon said a P9 billion supplemental budget should be given to the Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program (4Ps) since its allocation was reduced in 2023, supporting Deputy Speaker David Suarez’s call.

Bongalon underscored the importance of the additional funding for 4Ps, saying it is a program institutionalized through Republic Act No. 11310 and should, therefore, have an ample budget under the General Appropriations Act (GAA).

READ: Solon eyeing supplemental budget for 4Ps

“I strongly support this proposal to address the P9-billion deficit in the 4Ps. Batas po itong 4Ps (The 4Ps program is a law), and we are mandated to fund its implementation. This will give justice to 4Ps beneficiaries who have been deprived of financial aid because of the deficit and the budget cut,” he said in a statement Monday.

“The longer the deficit stays, the more we deprive these 4 million poor Filipinos of a fighting chance to triumph over poverty. This program is meant to help poor Filipinos for a certain number of years, to help them in their daily needs and sending their children to school,” he added.

Suarez, in a statement released Sunday, said he intends to propose a supplemental budget for 4Ps after it was revealed that Senator Imee Marcos redirected P13 billion for the program in 2023 to other social aid programs.

It was Bongalon who first revealed that Marcos asked that P13 billion in the 4Ps be reallocated to other Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) programs. According to Bongalon, this meant 900,000 Filipino households in need of assistance failed to get aid under 4Ps in 2023.

READ: Imee Marcos’ budget realigning led to millions not receiving 4Ps — Bongalon 

Marcos explained that she reduced the allocation for 4Ps because DSWD only spent 45 percent of the program’s budget in 2022. She even noted that the unused funds would be returned to the national treasury rather than utilized to help indigent Filipinos.

Marcos recommended realigning the slashed allocation to other DSWD projects that are “quickly implementable.”

However, 4Ps Party-list Rep. JC Abalos said the senator may have failed to consider that DSWD was anticipating adding more 4Ps beneficiaries in 2023.

Abalos explained that two fortuitous events prevented the start of DSWD’s listing process — the reenacted budget in 2019 and the COVID-19 pandemic, which delayed the addition of more beneficiaries, resulting in surplus funds for 2022.

However, this was not the case in 2023, as the DSWD informed both the House and the Senate that a higher number of beneficiaries was expected with last year’s Listahanan 3.

Bongalon stressed the supplemental budget would definitely address that budget gap in the 4Ps.

“Imagine a family that receives 4Ps and then suddenly loses it in 2023 and 2024 due to the deficit,” he said in Filipino.

“How are their children who are studying? Will they stop because there is no funding for them? The cost and needs of our fellow Filipinos do not stop, so we must solve it,” he added. With reports from Ana Mae Malate, trainee