DILG calls on LGUs for follow-up support for ‘exited’ 4Ps beneficiaries

The Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG) on Friday suggested local governments should pass ordinances creating post-program interventions for former beneficiaries of the Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program (4Ps).

DILG Secretary Eduardo Año explained that these interventions were needed to ensure beneficiaries would remain “non-poor” after they exit the program.

"LGUs must guarantee that a social support package is in place to aid these families,” Año said in a statement.

"We, therefore, urge LGUs and their Sanggunians to acknowledge that support for these families goes beyond 4Ps through the enactment of a social protection ordinance providing social protection services for them and other 4Ps households."

As a national poverty reduction strategy of the government under the Department of Social Welfare and Development, 4Ps provides conditional cash transfers to poor households for a maximum period of seven years.

Beneficiaries would exit the program under the following conditions:

• the last monitored child in the household reaches 19 years old or finishes high school;
• the household reaches the seven-year duration of the program;
• the household is no longer poor based on the latest assessment thru the adopted standardized targeting system;
• the household voluntarily waives its membership in the program;
• the household commits offenses identified by DSWD for which the sanction is delisting.

Under a DILG-DSWD memorandum circular, LGUs are tasked to include 4Ps-related programs in their Annual Investment Program, Comprehensive Development Plan, and/or Local Poverty Reduction Action Plan.

Some functions of the national government are set to be transferred to LGUs with the implementation of full devolution. — DVM, GMA News