Bicam restores P8 B cut from P66-B cash transfer budget

The bicameral conference committee has restored the P8 billion cut from the P66-billion conditional cash transfer (CCT) program of the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD).

The budget cut, said DSWD Secretary Corazon Soliman, would impact on 4.4 million families enrolled in the Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program (4Ps), making them unable to access education and health grants for two months next year. She found the proposal “unacceptable.”

Malacañang had also hoped for the restoration of the fund, claiming it is important to achieve inclusive growth in the country.

But after the intercession of Senate President Pro-Tempore Ralph Recto and the prodding of the House of Representatives, the bicameral conference committee handling the P3.002trillion budget restored the P8 billion, which would have been redirected for the modernization of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) and the purchase of new planes for the Philippine Air Force.

Sen. Loren Legarda, Senate finance committee chairperson, said the amount was restored after Recto and House leaders contradicted the proposals of Sens. Vicente Sotto and Juan Ponce Enrile to slash the P8 billion and place the sum under the AFP budget. Legarda also supported the DSWD budget cut.

Senate President Franklin Drilon said Legarda informed him that the proposal to reduce the CCT program fund did not push through.

“I checked that one because the question was raised to me. I checked with our chair, Sen. Loren Legarda, and she said no, there was no such (deduction). That was the version that was brought by the Senate contingent to the bicam. Of course, it was subject to discussion in the bicam. It was restored,” Drilon said.

The CCT or 4Ps program gives monthly cash assistance to the “poorest of the poor” families provided they keep their children in school and attend family planning sessions.

In a statement issued yesterday morning, Soliman said she was surprised over the budget cut since the Senate had already approved her department’s P113-billion 2016 budget without any deduction.

“In fact, they even put in additional funds to our Social Pension and Supplementary Feeding Programs so we can cover more indigent Filipinos in need of government support. Hence, we cannot accept the reduction in our budget, more so that it will be taken from the cash grants for Pantawid Pamilya beneficiaries,” her statement read in part.

Soliman warned that senators behind the budget cut would have to be responsible to the millions of families who will be deprived for two months if the cut was not restored.

“Sens. Vicente Sotto, Juan Ponce Enrile and Loren Legarda, the proponents of the cut, may have to explain to more than 15 million Pantawid Pamilya individual beneficiaries why they will have to go through this,” Soliman pointed out.

Soliman said an P8-billion deduction could mean two months of grants suspensions for 4.4 million households, a move that may affect 10.2 million schoolchildren.