The House Committee on Poverty Alleviation has passed a measure strengthening the Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program (4Ps) law to provide more sustainable interventions to fight poverty.
AGRI Party-list Rep. Wilbert T. Lee, the principal author of the Expanded Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program Act, said it is high time to amend Republic Act No. 11310 or âAn Act Institutionalizing the 4Psâ to provide opportunities to adult household members by supporting their education, entrepreneurship and employment trainings.
âAnchored in the principle of investing in human development, we want to address poverty by opening opportunities for 4Ps adult beneficiaries to capacitate them to provide for their families after the 7-year maximum period that the program is allowed to support them,â the lawmaker from Sorsogon said.
Under this measure, interventions to assist 4Ps adult beneficiaries shall have three tracks, namely: (1) the Entrepreneurship Track; (2) the Employment Track; and the (3) Alternative Learning System (ALS) Track. At least one adult beneficiary must join and complete any of the said tracks.
Adult beneficiaries who successfully complete the Entrepreneurship Track shall be given assistance by the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) to ensure the ease of establishing a micro or small business and link him/her to a target clientele. Those who finish the Employment Track shall be given job facilitation assistance by the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE), while those who complete non-formal education using the ALS Track by the Department of Education (DepEd) until they finish Senior High School shall be given assistance to ensure their pursuit of higher learning or employment.
Under the existing law, 4Ps provides conditional cash grants to qualified indigent families to improve their health, nutrition, and the education of their children aged 0-18.
As of 30 September 2022, 4Ps covers a total of 4,285,531 household beneficiaries across 41,676 barangays in the country, a big number of which are agricultural workers.
The amount necessary to carry out the provisions of the proposed amendments to RA 10310 shall be taken from the General Appropriations Act (GAA).
Meanwhile, Tutok to Win party-list Rep. Sam Verzosa Jr. led efforts of the House Committee on Poverty Alleviation to pass the said bill, which would provide education, entrepreneurship, livelihood, and economic opportunities for impoverished Filipinos.
Among the amendments in the Expanded 4Ps law aim to enlarge the number of 4Ps recipients and to provide skills training to adult 4Ps beneficiaries through non-formal education track, employment track, and entrepreneurship track. There are an estimated 4.2 million individual 4Ps recipients at present. It will also provide post-skills interventions to help adult 4Ps beneficiaries to look for jobs or put up businesses.