ANGELES CITY– A total of 182,455 more indigent households in Central Luzon have been enrolled into the government’s Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program (4Ps) that would entitle them to as much as P1,400 monthly.
This would mean that the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) would accomplish its PPP objective by 88.02 percent in the region.
DSWD regional director Adelina Apostol said that the additional families would bring to 283,991 the number of families getting assistance from the 4Ps in all 13 cities and 117 towns in Central Luzon. The DSWD wants to bring the 4Ps to a total of 322,622 identified poor families in the region.
Of the additional 182,455 beneficiaries Nueva Ecija has the most number of enrollees at 49,776; Bulacan has 43, 250; Pampanga with 37, 525; Tarlac has 25,889; Bataan with 12,622; Zambales has 12,256; and Aurora, 1,126.
“Pantawid Pamilya provides cash grants of P1,400 per month during school months from June to March and P500 per month during non-school months from April to May or P300 per child per month as education grant and P500 per household per month as health grant to household beneficiaries as long as they comply with certain conditions like the regular visit of children in health centers to avail immunization and maintenance of a class attendance rate of at least 85
percent per month for those who are enrolled in day care centers or schools,” Apostol stressed.
She said the beneficiaries were “selected through the National Household Targeting System for Poverty Reduction (NHTS-PR), an instrument used in determining the recipients of the Self Employment Assistance-Kaunlaran (SEA-K), Social Pension and Cash-for-Work programs.”
“NHTS-PR is an information management system that identifies who and where the poor are in the country.
It uses the Proxy Means Test (PMT) in the selection of beneficiaries for social welfare programs and services,” she added.
She explained that “some of the variables used in the PMT are family composition, education of household members, housing conditions and access to basic services.”
