More than 67,000 poor households in Metro Manila are currently benefiting from the government’s Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program.
DSWD-NCR Regional Director, Ma. Alicia S. Bonoan said that since the implementation of the program in 2008, at least of P860,220,500 worth of cash grants has been disbursed to the beneficiaries of Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program from the 17 cities in NCR. The amount covers the period from December 2008 to March 2012.
Households which religiously comply with the conditions set by the program receive their cash grants every two months through the cash card facility of the LandBank of the Philippines. The cash grant aims to augment the needs of their children particularly along health and education.
Director Bonoan, in her report during the Rights Holders’ Congress held recently said that the cash grants received by the beneficiaries helped send to school some 139,053 children 3-14 years old. 39,184 children aged 0-5 years old are also being monitored for compliance to health related conditionalities.
To ensure that compliance of household beneficiaries to program conditionalisties are monitored, Bonoan added that DSWD-NCR is closely monitoring the use of Unstructured Supplementary Service Data (USSD) in the region, a global system for mobile communication that is used to send text messages between a mobile phone and an application program. This is part of the Beneficiary Update System that enables the beneficiaries to update their household information through text messaging.
“These efforts are made so that accurate information about the household is gathered so that a child can fully enjoy the benefits for education and health,” said Bonoan.
Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino program is a rights-based program that invests on children by giving financial assistance to poor households with children aged 0-14 so they can continue sending their children to school and provide them proper health and nutrition. The program believes that by promoting the rights of the children to have education and good health care, poor families have their chances of rising from poverty. ###