CCT program budget may be doubled

BY SAMMY JULIAN
Manila News Bureau Chief
MANILA — The government is seriously considering doubling its P21-billion budget allocation for the Conditional Cash Transfer (CCT) program despite questions of its legality.
“We might have a doubling of the budget dependent on the conditions emanating on the economy,” said President Benigno Aquino III during the Galing Pook 2010 awarding ceremony in Malacañang.
He noted that there are actually 4.6 million Filipino families under the poverty line. “We are hoping that we will have the results necessary to call for all 4.6 million families,” he said.
“In two years time, hopefully we will finish all of them,” the President said. “But if the economy really improves to the degree that we are hoping it does, then we will have such to an earlier time …”
Aquino also appealed to the local government officials to shoulder the fare and transportation expenses of their constituents who are collecting from the CCT program.
“We don’t want it happening that while government pours financial support to CCT, the beneficiaries are not getting any since they have no car to ride to town or they don’t have enough fare to reach the bank,” Aquino said.
Some CCT beneficiaries living in remote areas have to spend to collect their share from the program, he pointed out.
“Don’t take it against us if I ask you for more sacrifices by covering the transport or fare expenses of your constituent beneficiaries,” said Aquino.
CCT program provides assistance for education and health services through the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD).
It is also known as the Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program or the 4Ps.
It gives cash grants to poor families, especially those that have pregnant women or children ages 0–14 in them.
Through a national household targeting system, each family beneficiary will get P1,400 every month.
However, Sen. Aquilino Pimentel Jr. along with Sergio Tadeo and Nelson Alcantara are saying that the allocation is unconstitutional, dismissing it as a “grave abuse of discretion of the Executive Department.”
In their 23-page long petition filed on March 14, the group asked the Supreme Court to declare the program unconstitutional.
They said the CCT is indistinguishable from the recentralization of the funds that have been decentralized under Republic Act 7160 or even the Local Government Code of 1991.
It is therefore in violation of the part of the Constitution that ensures the independence of local governments from the national government, they said. The petition also pointed out that the cost of hiring and training new people to carry out CCT — which would be around P2.3 billion — was a “telling sign” that the DSWD was being recentralized./PN