CANDIDATE Martin Romualdez has proposed to increase three-fold the annual allocation under the conditional cash transfer (CCT) to a maximum of P46,000 per household to realize the full potential of the eight-year old program.
In a press conference, Romualdez told members of an urban poor group that the government has billions in pesos in unspent funds that lay idle in government banks while millions of Filipinos wallow in poverty.
Romualdez said that if elected in the Senate, he would make it his pet legislation to enact a law that would institutionalize, enhance and expand the CCT program.
Romualdez said that he would push to raise the cash grants in the 4Ps or Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program from P1,400 a month per family or P15,000 annually to P4,300 a month or P46,200 a year.
He said the current P1,500 family rate was way below the P4,300 a month extra income that each family needed to get out of the poverty cycle based on the 2009 Family Income and Expenditure Survey of the government.
Based on his proposal, Romualdez said that the cap on education grant should be raised to P9,000 per month from the current P3,000; and the nutrition grant should be raised to P800 per month from P500 month at present.
He said the low budget for each family was the reason why the CCT has so far failed to make a dent in the country’s poverty levels since the program was introduced by then President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo in 2008 and continued by the current administration.
Aside from increasing the pay-out levels, Romualdez said he would also push to make CCT deployment more efficient from the process in picking out the qualified beneficiaries to ensuring that these funds reach the targeted families.
With a law in place for CCT, Romualdez said beneficiaries do not have to worry about having their benefits at the whims of political leaders.
Romualdez announced his plan to leaders of the 400,000-strong Kusog Bisaya, composed of labor, farmers, fisherfolk and urban poor groups who expressed their support to the three-term lawmaker from Leyte.
“This is part of our ‘malasakit’ program devoid of any controversy and politics. We will also ensure checks and balances in its implementation through congressional oversight,” Romualdez said.