The conditional cash transfers given to poor families under the 12-year-old Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program (4Ps) have helped reduce poverty incidence and income inequality in the Philippines, hence should be emulated across the government’s development programs, the Washington-based World Bank said.
“Despite the program’s rapid expansion since it was piloted in 2007, it maintains good targeting accuracy, progressivity and cost efficiency in delivering assistance to the poor,” read a World Bank note titled “Pantawid Pamilya 2017 Assessment: An Update of the Philippine Conditional Cash Transfer’s Implementation Performance” released in September.
“Previous benefit incidence analyses confirm that [4Ps] contributes to reducing national poverty, though its targeting performance has declined over time,” the World Bank said.
According to the World Bank, 4Ps slashed the nationwide poverty rate by 1.2-1.5 percentage points (ppt) between 2012 and 2015.
The program also reduced income inequality by 0.5-0.6 ppt during the same period, the World Bank added.
“Other programs in the Philippines must learn from the experience of [4Ps] in terms of design, implementation, evaluation and impact. For the government of the Philippines to continue enhancing its capability in implementing programs that have proven ability to work, it must invest in putting in place systems for objective monitoring and evaluation, as well as accountability mechanisms as it has done with the conditional cash transfer program,” the World Bank added.
And even with political transitions, such programs would evolve and maintain relevance, it said.
The 4Ps was started during the Gloria Arroyo administration and later continued by her successors Benigno Aquino III and Rodrigo Duterte.
In April, President Duterte signed into law Republic Act (RA) No. 11310, which institutionalized the 4Ps while also providing more cash subsidies to beneficiaries.
To further support 4Ps, the World Bank in June approved a fresh $300-million loan as additional financing to cover 8.7 million Filipino children from 4.2 million families.
Moving forward, the World Bank recommended a number of adjustments to sustain the 4Ps’ poverty-reduction, education and health benefits.
“The recent halt in program expansion and use of outdated targeting system have resulted in lower coverage levels and incidence rates among the poor. Also, the inability to adjust benefit levels with inflation has resulted in lower generosity of benefits,” the World Bank noted. —BEN O. DE VERA