DSWD not keen on allowing local execs to select cash beneficiaries

The Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) is not keen on allowing local officials to be part of the selection of beneficiaries of the government’s conditional cash transfer program (CCT).

Social Welfare Secretary Corazon “Dinky” Juliano-Soliman noted “consistent” proposals from local government units and officials to be involved in the choosing of beneficiaries of the poverty-alleviation program.

Soliman said the DSWD would be open to suggestions but would be inclined to maintain the selection system based on a set of objective criteria. The target beneficiaries are targeted based on the National Household Targeting System for Poverty Reduction.

“Based on the experience of Mexico (where the CCT was based), it is always good to have an objective criteria and not have local politics get in the way of delivering the service,” Soliman told the Inquirer on Monday at the sidelines of a Visayas-wide forum on the CCT attended by local executives and civil society organizations.

She said the local government units were already involved in the verification of targeted beneficiaries but the final choice of beneficiaries is reserved for the DSWD.

If local officials will be involved in the selection of beneficiaries, they will always be suspected of choosing their political allies, according to Soliman.

She said that through the current selection system, the local officials would be “spared from anger and controversy” from their constituents.

Implemented starting in 2008, the CCT is a poverty-reduction program through conditional cash grants to “extremely poor” families by improving their health, nutrition and education.

As of October 31, the program has 2.338 million household beneficiaries in 953 towns and 77 cities in 79 provinces. The government has released P9.149 billion from January to August this year.

The DSWD has partnered with civil society groups, nongovernment and faith-based organizations in the implementation of its programs especially the CCT.

Soliman presided over the signing of memorandums of agreement with 21 organizations from Western and Eastern Visayas at Arabia Manor Hotel on Monday. The organizations will serve as partners and volunteer watchdogs in the implementation of the programs.

A total of 265 organizations nationwide have been tapped as volunteers for the yearlong partnership renewable annually, according to Soliman.