More than just rice

By Uriel Quilinguing

IT appears this government does not really want to address poverty. 

Take the case of the Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program or 4Ps which has, in recent years, been achieving its goals, despite controversies in its list of beneficiaries.

It’s easy to ignore if the performance assessment of the program comes from the Department of Social Welfare and Development because, in the first place, no government agency would admit its ineptness. But if an outsider like the World Bank takes cognizance of the positive impacts of the 4Ps, which is also called as conditional cash transfer (CCT) program, and recommends its replication, then it’s commendable.

Just a week ago, the Washington-based World Bank acknowledged the CCT, which is now on its 11^th year, that it reduced poverty incidence by 1.2-1.5 percentage points (ppt) also it also minimized income inequality by 0.5-06 ppt for the 2012 and 2015 period.

Before the WB came out with its finding, President Rodrigo R. Duterte and his advisers must have seen how the program has been transforming the lives of the more than four million CCT beneficiaries, hence the enactment of Republic Act 11310, which seeks for the institutionalization of the 4Ps and provided additional funding, in April this year.

In fact, the 2019 General Appropriations Act would show the government Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program, which is under the administrative supervision of the social welfare and development agency, with a budgetary allocation of P89.8 billion.

Assured the CCT, as it was originally conceptualized and being implemented, is here to stay, WB in June this year approved a fresh $300-million loan as additional financing to cover 8.7 million Filipino children of 4.2 million families.

Perhaps it was coincidental that, at the time when the WB came out with its positive assessment of the 4Ps, legislators in the House of Representatives and in the Senate who are politically aligned with ruling administration want to transform 4Ps through House and Senate resolutions that, instead of giving cash, rice will be given to the beneficiaries. Before the lawmakers took a month leave starting Thursday, the legislative measures that would totally alter the mood of assistance under the 4Ps were already in the third and final reading.

Once these get through, the government’s anti-poverty program should appropriately be labeled as conditional rice transfer (CRT), no longer CCT.

Once these measures would be in effect, the administration of the CRT should ideally under the National Food Authority, no longer with the DSWD since grains supply and distribution management for are not latter’s expertise.

Since then and until now, NFA is the sole agency tasked in palay procurement for buffer stocking and the obligation to provide the general public access to quality and affordable supply of government-subsidized rice. Since NFA, under the Rice Tariffication Law, has its hands free from rice imports then the agency might as well exercise a task which those in corporate communication relations do—extending assistance to the impoverished.

Whoever are behind the mangling of the 4Ps or CCT, which was conceptualized as a human development program that invests in health and education, are apathetic to the plight of impoverished families, unmindful of their real needs.

Before it came to be called conditional cash transfer, it was known as Ahon Pamilyang Pilipino and then to Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino. Those lacking empathy must at least know the real meanings of Tagalog words ahon, which is “to pull someone up,” and pantawid which means “to enable someone to get across” since these encapsulate the essence of the altruistic act for those in need.

Sometime in 2007, those deeply involved in social welfare service delivery found out there was a growing number of families who were below the poverty threshold; those who were financially incapable to feed and send their children to school. Hence, they thought of a program that could break the intergenerational cycle of poverty.

Giving rice instead of cash does not aptly address urgent and real needs of the impoverished. Every child needs more than just rice in order to survive and eventually live a decent life.

(Uriel C. Quilinguing is a former president of the Cagayan de Oro Press Club who, for more than three decades, had been editor in chief of Cagayan de Oro-based newspapers, including this paper.)