Solon eyeing supplemental budget for 4Ps

File photo shows beneficiaries of the Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program (4Ps) waiting for their turn to receive financial assistance. (DSWD Facebook page)

MANILA, Philippines — House of Representatives Deputy Speaker and Quezon Rep. David Suarez on Sunday bared his intention to propose a supplemental budget to address the P9-billion budget deficit in the Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program (4Ps).

In a statement, Suarez attributed 4Ps’ budget deficit to Senator Imee Marcos’ slashing of the program’s budget allocation by P13 billion in 2023.

“A supplemental budget can address the 4Ps crisis created by Sen. Marcos’ realignment of P13 billion from the program to other social amelioration endeavors of the government that left 843,00 families or 4 million poor Filipinos without financial support,” the lawmaker was quoted as saying.

“Our stomachs cannot bear to endure the suffering of four million Filipinos who do not receive their funds from the 4Ps as mandated by law. Their level of hardship should not worsen because there are months or years when they do not receive the assistance that should rightfully be theirs,” Suarez added.

Suarez also said that when the 2023 national budget was approved in the House of Representatives, the funding for 4Ps was complete.

“Now I don’t know what happened in the Senate, why all of a sudden P13 billion was slashed […] That’s what’s sad. Now I don’t know how we will describe a situation where we robbed the poor. Because most of the time, it’s the rich who are robbed,” Suarez earlier said.

“But the poor should not be robbed. Because they already have no money […] And yet we still take away what they should receive. In my opinion, I cannot stomach that,” he added.

He further emphasized that the 4Ps program is mandated by Republic Act No. 11310 and is not merely another amelioration program of the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD), whose budget can be realigned at will.

“They should receive what they’re supposed to get every month […] Because if there are instances when there’s a gap in the assistance they receive for a month, their level of poverty might worsen,” Suarez said.

The 4Ps, implemented by the DSWD, aims to assist roughly 4 million impoverished Filipinos by providing monthly subsidies.

These include P750 for health and P300 to P700 for education.

Reallocation of funds

In February of this year, Senator Marcos denied that the budget cuts she made in 2023 deprived the beneficiaries of the 4Ps.

Marcos noted that during the September 2022 hearings for the 2023 budget, the DSWD purportedly admitted that only 45 percent of the 4Ps budget had been spent, according to the financial reports of the department.

The senator also said that she proposed the slashing of the P13 billion fund and reallocating it to other “quickly implementable” DSWD projects to prevent the “threatened return” of unspent 4Ps allotment.

The diverted funds were allocated to projects such as supplemental feeding, Kapit-Bisig Laban sa Kahirapan-Comprehensive and Integrated Delivery of Social Services, Quick Response Fund for disasters, and Assistance to Individuals in Crisis Situation.