2 Decades Of 4Ps! Dole-Outs, ‘Ayuda’ Wrong Strategy To Help The Poor

As the Philippine Government allocates P205-B for Social Amelioration Programs in 2023 which include the 4Ps and “Ayuda,” there is a need for a serious review of the Poverty Alleviation Programs because of the grim statistics coming out of the Philippine Statistics Authority.
The latest economic reports by the PSA showed an uptick in unemployment at 4.3%, inflation at 8.6%, while the Poverty Incidence Per Family went up again to 18.1%, meaning almost 20-million of the country’s population live below the poverty threshold.
Now on its 16th year, the Conditional Cash Transfer (CCT) which was later named Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program or 4Ps, patterned after the Bolsa Familia Program of Brazil, had been funded with tens of billions every year.
In fact, the 4Ps, implemented by the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) gets more funds than the Department of Agriculture which is tasked to lead the Food Production Program of the country.
Over the last 15 years, the CCT or 4Ps program had received over a P2-Trillion in government funds, most of which were sourced from borrowings.
In spite of this staggering amount, there was only a 6% reduction in Poverty Incidence Per Family from 2016, a year before it was officially launched, to 2022.
When I was a member of the Duterte Cabinet, there were attempts to review and tweak the 4Ps program.
Indeed, there were success stories but these were overshadowed by accounts of reduced agricultural productivity because of lack of workers especially during the week after a pay-out, money spent for other purposes and ATM cards hocked to usurers.
In those meetings, I proposed that the 4Ps should be tweaked and turned into a productivity program where funds given to the beneficiaries should be used to produce food or goods to earn while contributing to the growth of the economy.
When my views were made public, I was branded Anti-Poor by critics because of this, ignoring the fact that I designed a poverty alleviation program, the SAAD People Economic Empowerment Program when I was Governor of Cotabato which helped reduce poverty in the province.
The SAAD later became a national program of the DA when I was Secretary of Agriculture and was recognized by the National Economic Development Authority as one of the most successful poverty alleviation program which improved people’s lives in over 30 provinces of the country.
So in spite of the glaring proofs of flaws in the program, even adverse effects on agricultural productivity, attempts to tweak the 4Ps never succeeded.
The reason was simple.
The 4Ps is like a Tiger on whose back politicians ride on to win elections.
They could not dismount and abandon 4Ps because if they do they will lose in the next elections.
Our biggest problem now is that our economic planners would like to provide a quick solutions to problems of inflation, poverty reduction and job generation.
Worse, almost every politician looks to dole-outs as the easiest way of convincing voters to support them because they “support the poor.”
With the National Debt nearing P14-T, however, I believe the time has come for our leaders to dismount from the Tiger and show courage to amend this expensive and ineffective strategy of helping the poor.
We should be guided by Lao Tzu’s wisdom when he said: “Give a man fish today, he will not go hungry for a day; Teach him how to fish, he will not go hungry for the rest of his life.”
The Philippines cannot be a Welfare State because we simply cannot afford it.
Let us empower and motivate our people to lift themselves out of poverty.
This is the greatest gift government could give its people.
#LetsDoWhatsRight!
#GovernanceIsCommonSense!
(Photos were downloaded from public websites.)