NATIONAL COLLEGE OF BUSINESS AND ADMINISTRATION

CENTER FOR GRADUATE STUDIES IN BUSINESS & MANAGEMENT

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Fairview, Quezon City

Title: DSWD Program - PANTAWID PAMILYANG PILIPINO PROGRAM (4Ps)

Situation
This study aims to assert the advantages, disadvantages and effectiveness of the Pantawid
Pamilyang Pilipino Program (4Ps), the conditional cash transfer program in the Philippines,
in addressing the poverty health care and basic education problems in the Philippines. The
researcher strongly agree that the 4P’s can help alleviate, not intensify, the problem of
poverty in the Philippines. Furthermore, believe that the 4Ps provides not only short term
benefits but also long term assistance necessary for the improvement of the Philippine
society.

The Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program has been much maligned and dismissed as a “dole
out” program. Critics have focused on the fact that it provides cash grants directly to poor
families, believing it would promote the culture of mendicancy and dependence. Others
believe that the grants would just be wasted on vices (perhaps alcohol, cigarettes, even
drugs) instead of human capital formation (education and health of the children).
Stereotyping of the poor prevented society from providing meaningful support in the past
by refusing to understand their situation. It turns out that both of these have been proven
unfounded by rigorous program evaluations, showed no impact on work effort of
beneficiaries nor on expenditure on vice goods. In addition, data shows that the poor do
respond correctly to incentives of highlighting the importance of investing in the human
capital of their children even if returns from such investments are farther away than what
usually is their immediate concern.

Introduction and Background of the Topic

What about the poor? This is the question looming in the minds of many ordinary Filipinos
when presented with facts about the Philippines' feat as one of the fastest growing
economies in the world. The idea that the country is becoming richer while the poor
remains poor, if not poorer, is unfathomable for many. This is a valid concern as millions of
Filipinos are prevented from living healthy and dignified lives due to poverty. The reality is,
the poor suffer from many things: hunger, malnutrition, untreated illnesses, and premature
deaths. More so, they suffer from lack of education and competencies needed to earn
decent incomes. Worse, those economic disadvantages are likely to be transferred from
parents to children.

No doubt, the poor needs help. Ironically, when the government extended help in the form
of conditional cash transfer (CCT) or locally known as Pantawid Pamilya Pilipino Program
(4Ps), critics called out the government. Some, those from the militant left and their allies,
even openly opposed the program by condemning the government of creating a culture of
dependency. Despite this opposition, Pantawid has become a highly popular program.
According to a 2015 Social Weather Station (SWS) survey, four out of five Filipinos
(beneficiaries and non-beneficiaries alike) now support the Pantawid program. The survey
even reports that those who support the program would “probably vote for” a Presidential
candidate who will continue it. In addition, Pantawid has evolved into a well-regarded
program with international development partners like the World Bank and the Asian
Development Bank considering Pantawid as one of the best conditional cash transfer (CCT)
programs in the world, but popularity does not necessarily mean that the program has a
lasting impact on the welfare of the poor.

For decades, government programs that were supposed to help the poor, especially those in
farflung areas, failed to reach them. And if they did, they were often ineffective or
inadequate. As they became hopeless and disaffected with the government, many were
driven to participate in political destabilization, armed rebellion and other forms of violence.
Arguably, such participation was motivated by a desire to bring about a brighter future for
their children, if not for their own selves.

Wanting a better approach to social assistance, the Administration of President Gloria

Macapagal Arroyo developed Pantawid Pamilya Pilipino Program (4Ps), which was tried as a
pilot project in a few locations in 2008. Recognizing its potential, President Benigno Aquino
III started a massive expansion of the program in 2010, along with a series of measures
strengthening its governance and management.

CCT is an innovative social assistance program that has been shown in Latin American to be
an effective way of helping the poor and its children. But not everyone agrees about the
effectiveness of Pantawid in the Philippines. The militant left, their political allies and some
influential members of the traditional elite have been unrelenting in their opposition against
Pantawid Pamilya. For various reasons (discussed below), they have been calling for its
abolition or de-funding.

But really, how helpful actually is Pantawid program to the poor -- and to the country as a
whole? How solid are the critic’s arguments and evidence for their claim that the program
should be defunded or abolished due to its alleged weaknesses and detrimental unintended
consequences? What lessons can the new government learn from the experience of
Pantawid? By laying out the core ideas of Pantawid Pamilya while giving due consideration
to the critics’ arguments against the program, we examine the available evidence and
analyze the implication. If the goal is to advance social protection alongside economic
reforms, we ask: is Pantawid Pamilya useful or wasteful?

Poverty and the challenge of social protection. The Philippines need to reduce its poverty
rate more rapidly and more deeply than what has been achieved so far. The reduction, as
widely agreed, is best done through transformative changes in the economy to ensure
sustainability. Undoubtedly, there is wisdom in these views.
But, achieving those transformational changes to achieve the desired objective has not been
easy. Despite economic reforms that had been taken after Marcos dictatorship, the
Philippines continue to struggle in bringing about needed reforms. It will take many more
years of struggle to successfully push additional reforms and for these to bear fruit.
Entrenched political and ideological forces against needed reforms are quite difficult
impediments to overcome.

Such difficulty in overcoming poverty is evident in the number of poor since 1991 (Figure 1).
The Philippine government defines a household as poor, if its income is less than the
poverty line - the amount it needs to buy food and necessities for its subsistence. Even after
decades of political promises and economic planning, the rate of poverty incidence among
Filipino households has remained persistently high at 26.3 percent in 2015. In fact, the total
number of poor people has risen from 22.6 million in 2006 to 26.6 million in 2015. More
disconcerting, the incidence rate of poverty remains stubbornly high even after five years of
relatively high GDP growth under Daang Matuwid

Figure 1. Philippine Poverty Incidence 2006-2015 (%)

Given the above information, we can say that the Philippines is consistent in two things:
first, positive economic growth; second, and rather sadly, high number of poor people. It
would be a cruel policy not to immediately improve the country’s social assistance, when it
can, to prevent the worst consequences of poverty. Indeed, there is an immediate need for
a robust social assistance program. The same program should also raise poor people's
chances of eventually moving out from poverty in the long run so that poor children will
have a chance for a better future. Clearly, inaction from the part of government would be
unwise and could forego great economic payoffs.
That there are significant economic returns to effectively reducing the worst consequences
of poverty can be inferred from available research findings. There is ample research that
shows that investments in early life have long-lasting effects. Childhood health have great
influence on health and economic status through life. Many of the interventions, such as
immunization, are effective only if administered at the right period (before age 1). Similarly,
education at early ages explain a great deal of education attainment, probability of
employment, and earnings in adulthood. In addition, children in disadvantaged
environments are more likely to commit crime, have out-of-wedlock births and drop out of
school.

The Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program (4Ps) is a version of cash transfer program here in
the Philippines that aims to eradicate extreme poverty by investing in health and education.
This study focused on personal experiences of students as 4Ps beneficiaries and factors that
have led to their dropping out from school. A qualitative method was employed utilizing a
case study design, where data was gathered from six (6) student dropouts who were 4Ps
beneficiaries. Results revealed that most student beneficiaries of the 4Ps are from indigent
families, highlighted that factors were due to family living conditions, the desire to help the
parents and siblings. Family living conditions, the poor standard of living still is a pressing
problem that can led students to drop out from school, even with the availability of financial
assistance that still links to poverty as an underlying factor.

Poverty has been one of the major problems and societal concerns in the country. Among
various indicators of poverty, Filipinos were found to be most deprived in gaining access to
education, the new multidimensional poverty index (MPI) created by the Philippine
Statistics Authority (PSA) showed. Poverty is a condition in which people lack the basic
things in order to survive such as food, shelter, water, clothes and education. It was noted
that most of the problems and difficulties of Filipinos are rooted in poverty. Many families
are left deprived of their basic needs and therefore forced their children to stop going to
school and help them instead in their livelihood. With this main ground, the Philippine
government initiated a program called the Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program or 4P’s
both to address poverty and in response to the country’s commitment to the Millennium
Development Goals (MDGs).
The Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program (4Ps) is a human development measure of the
national government that provides conditional cash grants to the poorest of the poor, to
improve the health, nutrition, and the education of children aged 0-18. It is patterned after
the conditional cash transfer (CCT) schemes in Latin American and African countries, which
have lifted millions of people around the world from poverty. 4Ps is a version of cash
transfer program here in the Philippines under the Department of Social Welfare and
Development, its aim is to eradicate extreme poverty in the Philippines by investing in
health and education particularly to children from 0-18 years old.
Children of the 4Ps beneficiaries are referred to Commission on Higher Education (CHED)
which is also DSWD’s partner in the project along with the Department of Labor and
Employment (DOLE) and the implementing state universities and colleges (SUCs). Under the
said program, it ensures that the grantees are enrolled in selected SUCs duly recognized by
CHED, channeled to CHED priority courses, and be extended the needed support that will
guarantee completion of studies, thus qualify them for high-value added jobs in the future.
In partnership with the Commission on Higher Education, the Department of Labor and
Employment, and the Philippine Association of State Universities and Colleges, 4Ps has
enrolled 36,003 beneficiaries in state universities and colleges as of June 2015
(officialgazette.gov.ph). The program has strict compliance when it comes to the school
attendance of the students who are beneficiaries because it is their basis in giving the cash
transfer. It is therefore expected for the beneficiaries to attend school regularly or at least
85% of the school days. There are studies that shows how the 4Ps program affects the
school attendance and the performance of the student.

Northern Samar as one of the poorest provinces in the country is a beneficiary of Pantawid
Pamilyang Pilipino Program (4Ps) covering 44,928 households, out of which 79,607 are
children beneficiaries for educational grants in all school levels in 24 municipalities (Diaz,
2018). Most college student 4Ps beneficiaries are enrolled in the University of Eastern
Philippines campuses. About 50% of the student population are 4Ps grantees, receiving
monthly stipend and necessary support for school-related activities and these students were
the priority beneficiaries of the Tertiary Education Subsidy (TES). Enrollment was seen to
increase with the 4Ps implementation, but while enrollment and school facilities are
increasing, some children remain out of school and there are still many cases of drop-outs.
With the cases of students dropping out from school despite the support given, at a closer
look, there can be underlying reasons for such. To address this gap, this study aims to
explore and describe these underlying factors that have led to their dropping out from
school.
Dr. Virola (2011), Secretary General of the National Statistical Coordination Board, said in his
presentation of the 2009 Official Poverty Statistics that a Filipino needed PhP 974 in 2009 to
meet his or her monthly food needs and PhP 1,403 to stay out of poverty. In 2009, a family
of five needed PhP 4, 869 monthly income to meet food needs and PhP 7, 017 to stay out of
poverty. Results of the latest Social Weather Stations (SWS) survey also revealed that one in
every five Filipino households, or an estimated 4.3 million families, experienced involuntary
hunger in the third quarter of the year 2011.

The Conditional Cash Transfer (CCT) programs serves as the government’s answers to the
pressing issues regarding poverty. Calvo (2011) defines the CCT as programs that provide
cash benefits to finance the basic needs and foster investment in human capital to
extremely poor households. These benefits are conditioned on certain behaviors, usually
related to investments in nutrition, health, and education.
The emergence of CCT programs occurred during the late 1990s, with Mexico’s innovative
Progresa (now Opurtunidades) program emerging as one of the earliest schemes in 1997.
The evidences highlighting the effectiveness of Progresa motivated a rise in similar programs
across Latin America. Throughout the late 1990s and into the early part of the new century,
CCT programs were implemented in Honduras, Brazil and Nicaragua.
CCT programs are presently being implemented in several Latin American countries
including Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Jamaica, Mexico, and several more. Indonesia and Pakistan
are only some of the Asian countries which employ the CCT programs as a major tool of
their social policy. In general, these programs provide money and financial assistance to
poor families under the condition that those transfers are used as an investment on their
children’s’ human capital, such as regular school attendance and basic preventive health
care. The main mission of most CCT programs is to prevent inter-generational transference
of poverty, that is to say, investing in young children and providing them with the provisions
necessary for better opportunities in the future.

The objective and strategy of Pantawid.

Recognizing the importance of providing immediate help to the poor, the Government
adopted an innovative social assistance program targeted at eligible poor households. The
objective of the program is to immediately ease poor families' pain of deprivation and
simultaneously enable and motivate them to raise the education, health and nutrition status
of their children. With increased human capital, these children would have a better chance
of escaping poverty in the long run.

Co-responsibility and social contract approach. With this objective in mind, the Government
designed Pantawid Pamilya to assist the poor by providing them conditional cash transfers
(CCT). Unlike conventional social assistance, those grants are provided in exchange for
certain actions (called “conditionalities”) that beneficiaries must comply with.
The implication of conditioning the grants on certain household actions means that
beneficiaries must pay a certain price to continue receiving Pantawid grants. The price
comes in the form of household time, money and effort spent in ensuring that children are
present in school and that they get basic health care. The cost of educating children includes
expenses for transportation, uniforms, school fees, and educational materials as well as the
opportunity cost of the time children and parents spent in meeting the conditions of the
grants.

CCTs usually link those conditions to specific behavior, output or outcome that the
government wants to change. In the Philippines, they are linked to education, health and
nutrition indicators because they have been lagging with the Millenium Development Goals
(MDGs). Specifically, Pantawid Pamilya condition on school grants include children’s school
enrolment and class attendance rate of at least 85%. For health grants, the conditions are
regular health clinic visits for immunization, growth monitoring, and other basic health
services. Interestingly, the Pantawid also requires parents to attend Family Development
Sessions (FDS). In these sessions, beneficiaries discuss and learn about family planning,
development of good family relationships, livelihood, good citizenship, health education,
financial literacy, children education and other family issues. See Appendix 1 for details of
the Pantawid grants and conditions.

One way of looking at the “quid pro quo” or "exchange deal" requirement of Pantawid is
that it is a social contract between the government and the beneficiary household. This
contract reflects the belief that the education, health and nutrition of children are their “co-
responsibility”. It is with this philosophy in mind that the government provides through the
Pantawid Program cash grants to eligible households with young children.

Initially, the program included only 0-14 year olds. After five years of program
implementation, eligibility for the education grant was extended to include 0-18 year olds.9
Government decided to adopt the extension to help poor children complete high school
education, a deemed smart decision in view of the high economic return to secondary
education. Paqueo, Orbeta, Castaneda, & Spohr (2013) estimates a rate of return of 22.5
percent to secondary education.

The social contract approach to social assistance was inspired by the CCT programs of
Mexico (Oportunidades), Brazil (Bolsa Familia) and Colombia (Familias en Accion), pioneers
in the development and implementation of large scale CCT programs. The Philippine
emulation of those programs made sense, since the Philippines and the above-mentioned
Latin American countries have had similar problems with conventional social assistance
programs.
In the Philippines, price subsidy and feeding programs are just two examples of social
protection programs implemented by the government to help the poor afford basic
necessities. However, the NFA rice price subsidy program was found to be the least effective
program in reaching the poor while encompassing a bulk of national government spending.
Other programs, such as feeding programs, social security systems and social health
insurance schemes, were also found to be problematic in the country. Numerous feeding
programs in the Philippines (e.g., Food-for-School Program, school feeding programs, and
4Ps) overlapped with one another, while SSS, GSIS and PhilHealth provided low coverage of
poor households especially in the informal sector

Demand-side emphasis. Until the introduction of CCT, social assistance programs were
mostly limited to beefing up the supply of health, nutrition and education services. What
the government did was to improve the supply of these services to help the poor. This was
done by allocating more public funds for hiring additional teachers and health personnel,
increasing the number of school places and health clinics, and purchasing of food stuff for
feeding programs.

A common problem with the traditional supply side approach to social assistance is that the
allocated resources often do not translate into actual benefits received by their intended
beneficiaries. One reason is that households are too poor to send their children to school or
for mothers and their young children to get basic health care. To address this issue,
Pantawid Pamilya seeks to re-balance social assistance towards interventions that would
enable and motivate households to keep their children in school and bring them to clinics
for basic health and nutrition services. With this program focus, analysts have labeled
Pantawid and other CCTs as “demand side” interventions, because their assistance is
directed at boosting the households’ demand for improvements in children’s education,
health and nutrition (EHN).
Appendix 1 discusses other defining characteristics of Pantawid Pamilya versus traditional
social assistance programs. These characteristics include targeting and selection of
beneficiaries, use of cash instead of in-kind assistance, the institution of good governance
and management practices, and modern banking and technology support.
Expansion of coverage and costs. The Pantawid Program started with 284 thousand
beneficiary households in 2008. By 2015, beneficiaries reached 4.1 million households. In
terms of population, the number of beneficiaries rose from 662 thousand children aged 0-18
years old in 2008 to 10.2 million in 2015. Today, the program covers about 79% of poor
households whose income is less than the amount needed to basic necessities.

To support the rapid and massive expansion of beneficiary coverage, the government
allocated huge increases in the budget of Pantawid.

Figure 2. Budget of Pantawid Pamilya, 2008 to 2016

The increase in budget allocation (Figure 2) for Pantawid allowed the Philippines to align its
social protection spending closer to the practices of its peers. In 2009, social protection
spending (the sum of social assistance and social insurance) was only a small 2.3 percent of
GDP. By 2013, it stood at 3.4 percent or more, which is closer to the social protection
spending of East Asia and the Pacific (3.5 percent) and of Latin America and the Caribbean
(5.1 percent). So, although there was a large expansion in social protection (SP) spending
due largely to increased Pantawid expenditure, SP expenditure remains within international
norms.
However, despite advances in social assistance, the 2015 Family Income and Expenditure
Survey (FIES) shows that there remains a considerable gap between the average household
income of the poor and the poverty threshold. The gap is estimated to be 135.6 billion pesos
in 2015. This is the amount of transfer needed annually to bring the income of all poor
households to the level of the poverty threshold. Despite large increases in Pantawid
budget, therefore, the financial challenge of helping the poor close the gap between their
income and the poverty line remain substantial.

Skepticism, criticism, and opposition.

Not everybody believes in the social and economic value of investing massive amounts of
public resources in Pantawid Pamilya. Some vocal and influential segments of the
population claim that CCT have detrimental unintended consequences. Others are skeptical
of the program's effectiveness. This is especially evident during the years immediately
following former President Aquino’s decision to massively expand the program's budget.
The opposition includes militant activists and ideologues, partisan political opponents of the
President, and some well-meaning religious leaders. Although the opposition seems to have
weakened recently, the militant left and their allies in Congress as well as some members of
the Philippine elite continue to call for Pantawid’s abolition or diminution of its budget.
Palliative, unsustainable and government dole-out - these are the common criticisms of
Pantawid. Critics argue that the program's palliative characteristic is because it does not
have long lasting effects against poverty. Moreover, it has been criticized as unsustainable
because the assistance generates neither income nor transformative changes in the
structure of the economy. Worse, branding the Pantawid as government dole-out, critics
claim that the program leads to a culture of government dependency, mendicancy, and
laziness. In their view, the huge amount of resources spent on Pantawid would be better
spent on job creation and training that would “teach the poor how to fish”. The next section
discusses the evidence on those claims.

Critics also object to the idea of giving cash directly to target poor households and giving
them discretion on how best to spend cash assistance. They are concerned that the poor
would waste their cash grants on entertainment, gambling, alcohol and other vices rather
than use them on the education and health needs of the children. In short, they doubt that
the poor can be trusted to make appropriate expenditure decisions.

Furthermore, they claim that the program benefits will not reach the intended beneficiaries
due to alleged leakages due to corruption and failure to accurately target the poor. Critics
contend that Pantawid is failure because a large percentage of beneficiaries are not the
intended poor. They claim that Pantawid grants are being used for patronage politics. They
specifically alleged that Pantawid was used to buy votes for the Administration candidates.
This allegation is on top of their skepticism about the technical accuracy of the database, the
methodology and its application.
Skeptics also doubt that Pantawid’s demand-side strategy would work. To be effective, they
argue that school places and health center services must be available to meet increased
demand. Or if they are in short supply, markets and local governments should be able to
respond to demand pressures. For those critics, their belief is that demand is not a binding
constraint.
Obviously, both demand and supply side interventions are necessary to achieve optimal
levels of education and health service utilization. At the margins, however, which type of
interventions is more effective is an empirical question. It depends on whether the binding
constraint in a particular situation is the demand for or the supply of needed services.

On this point, it is not obvious that demand is not a binding constraint. Some studies
indicate that large segments of the poor have not enrolled in school or have prematurely
dropped out from school because they could not afford the monetary and opportunity cost
involved. Similarly, some research findings indicate that many poor people have not
received preventive and curative care because they could not afford the expenses of going
to health centers. Further, on malnutrition, households arguably do not buy enough
nutritious food due to both income constraint and lack of health education. Those
observations can be interpreted to mean that the education, health and nutrition of those
poor children are effectively demand-constraint. The point here is that the effectiveness of a
social assistance program that is focused on demand-side interventions is an empirical
question. The next section discusses the evidence regarding this issue.

Before moving on to the next section, it is necessary to clarify a couple of points. First, no
advocate of Pantawid is claiming that it is panacea or a substitute for transformative
economic reforms. Assertions to the contrary against the program are misleading. Second, it
is also disingenuous for militant critics and their allies to call for expansion of jobs instead of
Pantawid, while advocating policies and regulations that inadvertently encourage capital-
intensive production and make job creation difficult.

CONDITIONS AND COMPLIANCE

In order to receive the abovementioned subsidies, all the succeeding conditions must be
met by the household-beneficiaries:
Pregnant women must avail pre- and post-natal care, and be attended during childbirth by a
trained professional;
Parents or guardians must attend the family development sessions, which include topics on
responsible parenting, health, and nutrition;
Children aged 0-5 must receive regular preventive health check-ups and vaccines;
Children aged 6-14 must receive deworming pills twice a year; and
Children-beneficiaries aged 3-18 must enroll in school, and maintain an attendance of at
least 85% of class days every month.
High compliance rates were recorded for the months of March and April 2015: 99.91% for
the deworming of children aged 6-14; 98.99% for school attendance of children aged 6-14;
98.33% for school attendance of children in daycare aged 3-5; 97.05% for school attendance
of children aged 15-18; 95.95% for health visits of pregnant women and children aged 0-5;
and 94.84% for attendance in family development sessions.

PARTNERSHIPS WITH GOVERNMENT AGENCIES

In partnership with the Commission on Higher Education, the Department of Labor and
Employment, and the Philippine Association of State Universities and Colleges, 4Ps has
enrolled 36,003 beneficiaries in state universities and colleges as of June 2015.
Additionally, in partnership with PhilHealth, 4Ps has covered 4.4 million beneficiaries under
the National Health Insurance Program.

Advantages of the 4Ps

The “CCT programs address both future poverty, by fostering human capital accumulation
among the young as a means of breaking the intergenerational transmission of poverty and
current poverty, by providing income support for consumption in the short run” (Rawlings &
Rubio, 2005, p. 33). Indeed, the main objective of the 4Ps and other CCT programs is to
prevent inter-generational transference of poverty and help break the infinite cycle of
poverty by providing the children the suitable educational and health assistance so as to
help them develop the facilities for a better future. Investing in children’s human capital and
ensuring that they grow into educated and healthy adults, is the equivalent of teaching
them how to fish. Healthy, educated children ultimately have more choices in life and are
able to become productive members of society.

Furthermore, the implementation of the 4Ps lessens the incidence of child labor and other
forms of child abuse. In cases of the other CCT programs implemented in other countries,
there are two interrelated mechanisms found to help combat child labor. First, through their
cash subsidy component, schooling’s directs costs are reduced, thereby inducing families to
send their children to school, as opposed to work. Second, these programs require families
to have their children attend school, 85% of the school days per month in the case of the
4Ps, in exchange to cash subsidy. This requirement increases the time children spend in
school and reduces the time they can allocate to work (Gee, 2010). There is a noticeable
increase in the number of enrollees in many elementary schools in areas included in the
scope of the 4Ps, and kindergarten classes were being established to answer the need of the
community in compliance to the condition of sending 0-5 years old children in day care
centers and preschools (DSWD, 2009). Subsequently, if collaborative compliance to this
requirement of the 4Ps is ensured, the literacy rate of the children is also expected to
increase.

In the long run, the 4Ps as well as the other CCT programs, aims to establish social equality
and mobility through education. As mentioned by Gundlach, Navarro de Pablo, & Weiser
(2010), the centrality of education in poverty-reduction policies stems from the belief that
education is a powerful equalizer and the main asset of most people. Sen & Dreze (as cited
by Calvo, 2011) incorporates the notion of inequality and social exclusion as obstacles for
the construction of a system of rights and opportunities. Accordingly, people are poor not
just because of a lack of economic resources to satisfy basic needs, but also because they
live in a social, economic and political system which does not provide equality of
opportunities. The 4Ps intend to provide the basis for this much needed equality by
providing the poor people with the education that they could not access otherwise.

Malnutrition, which is prevalent among extremely poor families, is also expected to

decrease. Since it is a prime requirement for beneficiaries to avail of the health services
being offered in their health centers such as pre- and post-natal services, vaccination, and
periodical check-ups before acquiring their money grants, the health and nutrition of the
poor families are safeguarded.

The 4Ps also promotes gender empowerment seeing as the responsibility of managing the
cash grants are given to the mother. This decision is based on the experience in CCT
programs showing that women make relatively better use of grant money by using it to
purchase food and/or other necessities such as medicines, transportations and school
supplies.
In the nutshell, the underlying concept of the CCT programs, and of the 4Ps as wells, is: once
individuals are healthy, better fed, and educated, they will be able to overcome poverty in
the long run (Valencia, 2009).

Disadvantages of the 4Ps

Like any other government program, the 4Ps also have its disadvantages that may encumber
its helpful benefits. One of the most crucial characteristic of the 4Ps and other CCT programs
implemented in other countries is its being a ‘demand-side’ intervention instead of being a
‘supply-side’ intervention. That is, in order to be considered as a beneficiary of the program,
one must concede with the government’s demands and conditionalities (Coady & Parker,
2002). This is remarkably notable in the conditions concerning education and health services
where the beneficiaries being brought into the education and health services system instead
of expanding the education and health systems in order to reach them.

Furthermore, as previously mentioned, poverty in the country is not only caused by the lack
of economic resources, but also because of socio-economic and political factors that
prevent the equality and distribution of resources. Although the 4Ps aims to provide the
poor with the education which is, otherwise, inaccessible, it does not directly answer the
socio-economic and political problems that are the primary cause of poverty. In the case of
the 4Ps in the Philippines, it does not answer the issues regarding the political and economic
elite families. And poverty can only be totally alleviated if there are programs that could
target its roots.

The 4Ps will also encounter some difficulties in achieving support from the other social
classes, mainly because it does not benefit middle-income groups which have also been
steadily affected by limited universal services and decreases in employment (Cuesta, 2007).
These middle-income groups are also suffering from issues of poverty and limited access to
educational and health benefits, but are not included in the target population of the 4Ps.
The 4Ps is programmed to help only the extremely poor.

Another major disadvantage of the 4Ps implementation is that it requires a huge amount of
finance which we do not have at the present. The 4Ps is a loan driven program, much of the
funds constituting the conditional cash grants given to beneficiaries are generated from
loans abroad, particularly from the United States. By the tail-end of August 2010, the Asian
Development Bank (ADB) approved a US$400 million loan specifically for the 4Ps which will
run from 2011 to 2014. This comprises 45.2 per cent of the total cost of US$884.2 million,
where US$484 million serves as the government’s counterpart. Having ADB’s US$400 million
in addition to the World Bank’s US$405 million, makes two-thirds of the whole 4Ps from
2009 to 2014 comprised of loans (Somera, 2010, p. 6). Arguments against the 4Ps point out
that despite the large amounts of financial resources needed to implement the program; it
does not generate guaranteed returns to the economy as much as infrastructure projects
like construction of roads, bridges, and railways do.

CONCLUSION
The Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Programs poses many appealing objectives, goals and
benefits for the poor families that comprises most of the Philippine’s population. The 4Ps is
a good example of strengthening the government’s capability of distributing the country’s
resources to those who are extremely in need. It is undeniable that there are many poor
households that will benefit from the said program, and that the program covers the basic
needs that otherwise would go unmet. Likewise, the government’s effort in making the
country’s educational and health services system inclusive is a huge step towards social
mobility and equality. The researchers feel strongly about the 4Ps’ principle that well-fed
and educated citizens are imperative for a productive country and society.

However, it is also undeniable that the 4Ps, as well as the other CCT programs being
implemented in other countries, is not the perfect solution. There are many insufficiencies
that the program might face in the long run of its implementation. And as a new policy here
in the Philippines, the 4Ps will certainly need further revisions and studies in the future.

Nevertheless, the researcher believe that for any government program to succeed, the
government and the citizens must arrive in a peaceful consensus. The government’s duty is
to secure that the people’s needs are provided and their rights are protected. And the
citizens, in return, must use their full capacity to be productive and help the country. The
researcher believe that the implementation of the 4Ps is a good example of the concurring
responsibilities of the government and the citizens.
Millions of poor beneficiaries are now receiving cash grants due to former President Aquino
III’s bold decision to implement a massive expansion of a strengthened Pantawid Pamilya
Program. On balance, the program has had significant beneficial impact on the poor and
their children. Through this program, people have clearly felt and seen the helping hand of
the state effectively at work, as evidenced by the overwhelming support of beneficiaries and
non-beneficiaries alike for the continuation of the program. As mentioned, SWS survey23
shows that four out of five respondents support the program and have expressed their
intention to vote for the Presidential candidate who supports its continuation. This finding
suggests that from the societal point of view the economic benefits from Pantawid Pamilya
must be worth more than the cost of transferring sixty billion pesos of public money to the
poor. This conclusion is consistent with the view held by many that at the margin a peso is
worth more to the poor than to the non-poor households.
Indeed, Pantawid Pamilya is a smart populist program unlike other anti-poverty programs. It
helps the poor with their urgent needs, while creating a more hopeful future for their
children. This alternative future is being created by helping the children of the poor develop
greater capacity to to eventually earn income through increased years of education; In
addition, the program paves the way for the poor children's development in terms of mental
capacity and other physical abilities, qualities associated with good health and nutrition.
The implication of the data presented above is that the program support interventions that
would likely reduce the transmission of poverty from parents to children. Therefore, the
abolition or the scaling down of Pantawid would probably have damaging unintended
consequences on the present and future welfare of poor children. Such policy decision
would arguably reduce beneficiary children’s opportunities for gainful jobs as well as their
chances of moving out of poverty, when they become adults. On this point, the opponents
of Pantawid have been disingenuous in denying the value of preparing children for
productive employment. Their use of the adage about “teaching people how to fish instead
of providing dole outs” is misleading to advocate reallocation of Pantawid budget to some
unspecified job creation program.
Specific conclusions.

RECOMMENDATION
In relation to the general conclusion above, we highlight the following specific findings.
First, the critics’ concern that Pantawid cash grants would just increase expenditures on
vices, undermine work ethics and encourage a culture of mendicancy is overblown. In fact,
impact evaluation does not support the critics’ allegations, at least within the parameters of
the current design of Pantawid Pamilya and other CCT programs outside the Philippines. In
this regard, evidence indicates that poor parents spend their resources responsibly. Mere
labeling and denigrating the program’s conditional grants as dole-outs that parents would
just waste on vices instead of children’s human capital formation is not a credible argument
to support the critics’ call for the abolition of Pantawid Pamilya.
Second, the critics claim that Pantawid is a failure because its benefits are going to
beneficiaries above the poverty line is also a gross exaggeration. In fact, 82 percent of the
beneficiaries belong to bottom 40 income class and 53 percent are from the bottom income
class. In fact, it was also pointed out that Pantawid is one of the better targeted CCT
programs in the world.
Third, aside from the usual spillover effects of improved education, health and nutrition,
evidence indicates that the Pantawid grants do lead to less insurgent influence and fewer
violent conflicts. The benefits from reduced conflicts, greater social cohesion and improved
social order can be viewed as public goods. These benefits provide yet another justification
for investing public funds in Pantawid Pamilya.
The generally positive tone of the above summary should not be taken to mean that there is
no more room for improvements. In fact, moving forward, there are important issues that
need to be addressed to maintain and enhance the impact of Pantawid on the welfare of
the poor. We, therefore, end this paper with some parting thoughts on three important
issues, namely, the mixed findings regarding the impact of the program on outcome
indicators, the desirability of raising the amount of grants provided, and the need to adjust
the program conditionalities
On the mixed effects of Pantawid, the impact evaluation section shows that on many output
and outcome indicators, the program has had statistically significant impact. On several
other indicators, however, the impact of Pantawid appears to be insignificant. Why the
program failed to have statistically significant effects on some of the variables is an
important question that needs further study. A couple of ideas are proposed for further
empirical analysis.
One idea is the possibility that the quantity and quality of supply of education and health
services may be the predominant binding constraint instead of the effective demand of
households in certain localities. For example, perhaps the reason why Pantawid has not
raised the rate of complete immunization of 0-5 year olds may perhaps be due to lack of
vaccines in the health centers, when beneficiary children are brought to those facilities for
basic health services.
The second idea is that given the relatively small size of the grants, the effects may be too
small to be detected, considering sampling and data measurement errors. For example,
impact evaluation analysis found that Pantawid has had no significant effect on household
income, total consumption expenditure and, therefore, current poverty status. The
implication of this explanation, if empirically verified, is that bigger amount of cash grants
might be needed for Pantawid Pamilya to have a larger and more detectable effect on
poverty incidence.

On the size of grants, there are proposals to raise their amounts to enhance the impact of
Pantawid Pamilya. There is reason to believe that increased amounts would raise the impact
of the program. But providing all beneficiary households bigger grants without piloting it
would be risky. It would be prudent to first know the impact of different alternative grant
sizes to determine the optimal affordable grant amounts. Relatively large grants could
trigger unintended consequences on work ethics. A reason for why Pantawid has not
undermined the beneficiary households’ work ethics so far is that the cash transfers they
are currently receiving are not big enough to enable some adult household members to stop
working or to reduce hours of work without lowering household welfare. Much bigger
grants, however, can change the household calculus in ways that would lead to the
weakening of work ethics and the emergence of dependency on government, as critics have
warned.
On the need to update the grant conditions, there is a need to re-think them. Given that
elementary enrollment rate is already close to one-hundred percent, it makes little sense to
continue conditioning the education grants on elementary school enrollment. On this point,
the government needs to think of a different education-related indicator on which to
condition the grant transfer.

Moreover, the conditions for the health grants should also be re-thought, given that all
Pantawid households are now covered by PhilHealth. Perhaps, the conditionalities can be
adjusted to enable and motivate timely use of PhilHealth benefits by Pantawid beneficiaries.
Utilization of PhilHealth benefits by rural households are low, mostly due to the cost of
transportation and related expenses for medical check-ups. The challenge in this regard is
how to ensure that Pantawid beneficiaries are able to opportunely take advantage of their
PhilHealth benefits and minimize the effects of ill health.