Cash dole out to poor useless, militants say

A militant group has branded as “useless” the Aquino administration’s poverty alleviation programs that include a cash dole-out to the poorest households in the country.

In a statement, Gloria Arellano, Kadamay national secretary general, said the decline in hunger incidence as recently reported by the Social Weather Stations (SWS) in its latest survey should not be attributed to an effective implementation of the conditional cash transfer, a flagship program of President Benigno Aquino III.

Under the CCT, financially incapable families receive a maximum of P1,400 per month after following certain conditions.

“(Assuming that) the survey results were good, and the sampling used was scientific, P-Noy’s (President Aquino) cash transfer program is even (doubted) to have a relevant effect on the decline in self-rated hunger (in the country),” Arellano said.

The SWS survey, conducted from June 3-6 this year, showed that 15.1 percent of Filipino families went hungry in the last three months, a drastic decline from the 20.5 percent recorded in March.

Based on the latest survey, the hunger rate was the lowest since June 2007, when the number of the hungry was recorded at 14.7 percent.

Albay Gov. Joey Salceda earlier attributed the overall decline in hunger incidence to the expansion of the CCT program.

Arellano noted that Luzon (Metro Manila excluded), where hunger incidence was reported to have decreased from 25 percent during the first quarter to 9.7 percent, was not a prioritized area for CCT implementation.

Visayas and Mindanao, for their part, recorded an increase in self-rated hunger (from 14.7 percent to 21 percent in the Visayas, and from 16.7 percent to 21.7 percent in Mindanao), according to results of the SWS survey.

This is despite fact that they have been identified as priority areas by the government, Arellano said.

Arellano also observed that many CCT beneficiaries complain of the delayed arrival of their monthly allowances.

“Corruption is deeply rooted in (the country’s) bureaucracy… P-Noy must stop his costly and corruption-prone stopgap measures, and devise permanent and realistic solutions…,” Arellano said.

“Genuine land reform to give opportunities to every poor Filipino family, freedom from neoliberal economic polices, and nationalist industrialization shall break the bond of poverty. We challenge P-Noy to implement them during his term, as no presidents had done in the past,” she added.