I APPROPRIATE not only the same title of my piece here exactly a year ago today, but also a great part of its content, given the sameness of the situation that obtained then as now in the government’s conditional cash transfer (CCT) program.
Integrated in the budget of the Department of Social Welfare and Development, the budget for the CCT for 2011 was raised to P21.9 billion, nearly doubling last year’s P12 billion.
The DSWD said this was principally due to the expansion of the program to cover a total of 2.3 million households from one million this year.
As provided in the CCT, each family – pre-selected among the poorest of the poor – will receive P1,400 per month for 10 months provided that the children will finish schooling.
Parents are also required to regularly bring their children to health centers for immunization and preventive health care, as well as improvement in their children’s nutrition and regular prenatal visits for pregnant women.
It is those conditionalities – supposed to be sine qua non for the cash – that, the CCT proponents claim, thoroughly differentiates the program from mere dole. A sort of a “social contract” binds the beneficiary to the donor, in effect.
So how adequate is government in ensuring that the beneficiaries would meet the conditionalities of their contract?
The task at hand is enormous, to say the least, so said last year’s fit and fighting, now ailing former President and current Rep. Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo. “We have to prepare the allied services in health and education whose demand would increase because of the conditions of the (CCT). Now we have a program that’s very good, that should be expanded but the question is by how much.”
Having initiated the program, Madame GMA understandably had to concede that it is “very good” and “should be expanded.” The question is only in the cost.
Other sectors however are not as optimistic of the CCT as CGMA.
As a matter of fact, even at its inception, the program – under a nomenclature other than the generic CCT – had drawn criticisms from practically all but the intended recipients.
Here’s a piece we wrote here not-too-long ago.
Culture of indolence
WITH THE government program that gives up to P1,400 monthly stipend to a family living below the poverty line, a new take on the old Chinese “fish talk” comes into being.
Government does not feed that family for only a day, it makes it cling to government for its meal for a lifetime.
This is a perpetuation of patronage politics, that has bedeviled Philippine governance from its feudal past to its so-called democratic present.
That is promoting, nay, further enhancing our culture of mendicancy.
That is propagating indolence, inertia and indigence.
Ahon Pamilyang Pinoy, the name of the dole-out program will effect the very opposite of its intent – instead of uplifting the life of the poor, it will submerge them into greater indignity, overdependence and despondence.
Lubog Pamilyang Pinoy will make a most appropriate name.
To the point, and so rightly, is Caritas Manila in saying that the dole will only make the poor dependent on government.
“It is anti-poor, gives the poor no dignity, and only breeds dependency.” So said Fr. Anton Pascual, executive director of Caritas Manila.
The P5 billion allocation of the national government to fund monthly stipend for each of the country’s poorest of the poor can better serve the poor by funding livelihood and income-generating projects where they can be gainfully employed.
“The government should instead employ the poor as street sweepers, canal sanitizers and garbage collectors to teach them the value of work,” Pascual suggested.
The government can partner with non-governmental organizations, small cooperatives, and social institutions in the programming of projects – from the old self-employment assistance and small-loan packages, to more innovative income-generating activities – for the poor.
That is going by the pro-actively positive “teach him how to fish, and feed him for a lifetime” part of the old Chinese saying. It goes well too with the Christian value that labor ennobles the man.
Trabaho, hindi limos ang sagot sa kahirapan. Trabaho, hindi limos ang aangat sa karangalan ng pinaka-hikahos man sa mga mamamayan.
AS IT was then, so it is now. Government too impoverish in thought as to think of a truly alleviating, much less empowering, anti-poverty program.
Shame.
And then, in the wake of the triple whammy of tropical storms Pedring, Quiel and Ramon, comes what could be the best use for the CCT funds. As best expressed in our editorial of October 5:
Better use for CCT
A SOUND proposal too – minus the soundbytes on the President “missing in action” and “self-imposed hiatus” as a large part of Luzon went underwater – is that advanced by the Pambansang Lakas ng Kilusang Mamamalakaya ng Pilipinas.
The alliance of fisherfolk has urged lawmakers to convert the P39-billion conditional cash transfer fund of the Department of Social Welfare and Development into an economic relief and rehabilitation fund for all victims of tropical storms Pedring and Quiel.
“In Central Luzon alone, about P 4.191 billion of agricultural crops and fisheries were destroyed by Typhoon Pedring. In Nueva Ecija, damage to palay crop was pegged at P2.867 billion,” Pamalakaya said.
Thus, it added, the P39-billion CCT fund this year could “serve better purpose if it would be channelled to economic relief and rehabilitation programs of agricultural and fishery regions and provinces hit by the typhoons like Isabela, Aurora, Central Luzon and Southern Luzon provinces.”
Pamalakaya proposed that the P39-billion CCT fund be transformed and allocated as follows: P19 billion for the rehabilitation aid in the form of grants and subsidies to small farmers and fisherfolk;
P10 billion for housing rehabilitation and construction of damaged schools, and; P10 billion for social service fund and additional budget for public health care.
Yes, what Pamalakaya proposes is far superior to how the CCT is being used now — wasted in the promotion of mendicancy among our people.
Yeah, that is indeed teaching – and aiding – man to fish in order to feed him for a lifetime.
