THE House Committee on Poverty Alleviation has called on the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) to implement a delisting moratorium on the removal of up to 1.3 million poor families from the Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program, or 4Ps.
1-Pacman Rep. Mikee Romero, the panel chairman, said his committee recently voted to urge the DSWD to carefully assess the situation of families to be removed from the program and those who would replace them.
“We are all for that, but let us make sure that the exiting families have really improved their financial status and that some of their children have finished college and are now employed,” he said.
Romero said the DSWD should have realistic standards for removing beneficiary families from 4Ps.
The lawmaker cited reports quoting a DSWD official as saying that a covered household earning more than P12,000 a month would no longer be entitled to financial assistance.
“Is this level of monthly income a reasonable threshold? Is P400 a day enough to feed a family? Romero asked.
He said the proposed delisting moratorium would not hurt the 4Ps program as it has enough funds.
“Its funding in the annual national budget is good for 4.4 million families. Today, 3.9 million families are considered ‘active,’ of which 3.2 million are receiving financial assistance. Some 700,000 households are ‘under review’,” he said.
Earlier, the DSWD said the 4Ps list of beneficiaries is being cleaned up, as there were duplicate entries that led to P7 million in overpayments in the years 2020 and 2021.