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JOE'S BLOG: 4Ps (PANTAWID PAMILYANG PILIPINO PROGRAM) STRATEGY
[PHOTO AT LEFT - LIFE OF POVERTY: Living in a box. Photo by Rudi Roels. Click image to view video WORLD BANK'S "Philippines: Cash Transfers." VIDEO CAPTION: The World Bank has signed a $200 million loan agreement with the Philippines Government to help that country cope with the impact of high food prices. The agreement, signed in Manila, will help the Philippines stabilize domestic food prices and extend support to the country's poorest and most vulnerable people. A key element is the expansion of a government pilot project for the poor, which makes direct cash payments to poor families who send their children to school and undergo regular health check-ups, in RP it is the 4Ps or CCT.]
TORONTO, OCTOBER 29, 2010 (PHNO) By JOE RIVERA - The 4Ps: A poor strategy against poverty.
Is living on government dole-outs the way out of poverty?
This is the underlying message behind the conditional cash transfer (CCT) programs initiated by the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in line with the United Nations Millennium Development Goals to reduce poverty by 2015. MexiKco started the first CCT program in 1997 and it was copied by other countries. Brazil's CCT program, called bolsa familia, became known worldwide and every other country is now attempting to replicate it.
The Arroyo government implemented its own CCT program, more popularly known as the 4Ps (Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program). President Benigno Aquino III is extending 4Ps as his administration's signature program to combat poverty with a much bigger budget of P21-billion and an additional loan of $400 million from the Asian Development Bank (ADB).
Social Welfare and Development Secretary Corazon Soliman presided over former President Arroyo's 4Ps. She will continue to be at the helm of the CCT program under the Aquino government. Recall that Soliman resigned from her position during the Arroyo administration in the wake of the Hello Garci election cheating scandal. President Aquino picked Soliman as his social welfare secretary after winning the presidential election last June 2010.
Even the megarich city of New York under Mayor Michael Bloomberg has fallen under the spell of the CCT program. New York City established Opportunity NYC as the first conditional cash transfer initiative in the United States, but unlike other programs already running in other parts of the world, the New York program is totally funded by a number of private partners.
The underlying premise behind a conditional transfer program is that it helps the poor to develop their human capital by breaking the cycle of poverty through monetary incentives that meet certain conditionalities. In essence, cash benefits
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Chief News Editor: Sol Jose Vanzi
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