Dole recipients say they’re shortchanged

LUCENA CITY—Recipients here of cash doles from the government, through the Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program (4Ps), are complaining of being shortchanged.

A woman from the coastal town of Dalahican said she failed to get P500 supposedly for health service when she checked her ATM account on Thursday.

The woman, who asked that she not be identified for fear of reprisal from the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD), said she used to receive P1,100 monthly in cash doles but the amount was cut to P600 a month for the last two months.

“Where is my money,” the woman asked.

The 4Ps is a government program that offers the poorest of the poor monthly doles of P500 for health and P300 for education of every child below 14 years old not exceeding three children per family.

A beneficiary family receives an average of P1,400 a month from the government through 4Ps.

Hundreds of 4Ps beneficiaries formed a long line on the sidewalks of Quezon Avenue here on Thursday to wait for their turn at two ATM booths of the Land Bank of the Philippines.

One of the beneficiaries complained of delayed payments of their monthly doles. She said she had already pawned her monthly dole.

She borrowed from a neighbor, she said, promising to pay the loan when she gets her monthly dole.

A staffer of the local office of the DSWD, the agency administering the dole program, said there was no shortchanging.

Lany Rivera, who said she was the local government link to the DSWD program, said  beneficiaries who fail to attend monthly cluster meetings in villages and fail to submit documents showing their children have gone through medical checkups are to lose P500 in their monthly dole as penalty.

“That P500-monthly assistance has a corresponding obligation. Failure to comply is automatic deduction,” Rivera said.

Rivera also said the disbursement of the dole in this city happens every two months.

Every cluster has a leader who is tasked with monitoring the compliance of each cluster member with conditions of the cash dole.

Rivera said cluster leaders are now strict in monitoring amid reports that some beneficiaries were using their dole for themselves and not for the benefit of their children.

“We’ve also been receiving reports that the ATM card is being used as loan collateral. We’re now combating this practice,” she said.

Opposition lawmakers had asked Social Welfare Secretary Corazon “Dinky” Soliman to suspend the multibillion-peso 4Ps program next year until she could answer various concerns on its implementation, including questions on how beneficiaries are being selected.

The DSWD is asking for more funds for the 4Ps program, which was started by ex-President Macapagal Arroyo and continued by her successor, President Aquino.

The program currently has P22 billion in funds and DSWD is asking Congress to allocate P39 billion for the program next year.