DSWD to retain 760K 4Ps beneficiaries

A senior official of the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) said 761,150 households will remain on the list of Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program (4Ps) beneficiaries after a reassessment in accordance with the directive of DSWD Secretary Rex Gatchalian.

These family-beneficiaries will continue to receive assistance through the 4Ps, DSWD Undersecretary for Innovations Edu Punay pointed out.

“That means they will not yet graduate and will continue to benefit from the program. After the assessment, our department saw that they are still non-poor and still need assistance under the 4Ps program,” Punay said in Filipino in a television interview on Oct. 31.

He explained that the DSWD found out that the beneficiaries were still in need of government assistance because of the significant impact the pandemic had on them.

The over 760,000 households were part of the 1.1 million households earlier assessed as “non-poor” under the Listahanan 3 or the National Household Targeting System for Poverty Reduction (NHTS-PR).

Out of the 1.1 million 4Ps beneficiaries, 339,660 households met the program’s graduation or exit requirements after being rated as Level 3 or self-sufficient.

Following their program completion, we recommend them to local government agencies and continue to support them as they leave the 4Ps by offering them other forms of assistance, such as the Sustainable Livelihood Program, Punay said.

The 4Ps is the national poverty reduction strategy and a human capital investment program of the government that provides conditional cash transfer to qualified household-beneficiaries.

It also provides social protection, social assistance, social development, and other complementary support services in partnership with concerned agencies, local government units, and other stakeholders toward improving the health and nutrition, education, and socio-economic aspects of the lives of beneficiaries.