750K new beneficiaries listed for 4Ps —DSWD chief Gatchalian

Some 750,000 new beneficiaries have been listed for the Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program (4Ps) replacing the 800,000 who graduated from the financial aid program, Social Welfare Secretary Rex Gatchalian said Friday.

"Naka-750,000 na papalit sa kanila ang naitala galing doon sa huling database, 'yung Listahanan 2019-2020," Gatchalian said in an interview on GMA News' Unang Balita.

(We recorded 750,000 beneficiaries who will replace those who graduated from 4Ps based on the database of Listahanan 2019-2020.)

The 1.3 million beneficiaries of the program were revalidated since the number was "outdated," meaning some of them are no longer considered poor, he added.

Upon assumption of his post, Gatchalian, a former Valenzuela City mayor and lawmaker, had said that he would prioritize fixing the list of beneficiaries under the programs of the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD).

However, Gatchalian said the DSWD will stop creating its own database for beneficiaries and will now depend on the database by the Philippines Statistics Authority (PSA) as stated in the Community-Based Monitoring System law.

"Nakasaad sa batas na 'yun, by the end of this year, wala nang ibang database na gagamitin kung hindi yung database ng CBMS, so talagang iyu-unify na," he said.

(It is stated in this law that by the end of this year, no other databases will be used except for the CBMS database, so the records would be really unified.)

Gatchalian said he and National Statistician and PSA chief Claire Dennis Mapa discussed the matter during a meeting on Thursday.

According to the PSA, the law enables the Philippines' adoption of a community-based monitoring system that generates updated disaggregated data necessary in targeting beneficiaries, conducting more comprehensive poverty analysis and needs prioritization, designing appropriate policies and interventions and monitoring impact over time.

The DSWD and PSA are now calling on lawmakers and funding agencies to provide a budget to finish the database by the end of 2023.  —KBK, GMA Integrated News