Legarda: Institutionalization of 4Ps Bill to Help Reduce Poverty, Promote Human Capital Dev’t

Senator Loren Legarda today hailed the Senate’s approval on third and final reading of the measure institutionalizing the Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program (4Ps) and the proposed Community-Based Monitoring System, which are seen to be effective instruments to address poverty.

Legarda said that the 4Ps Bill seeks to institutionalize the program to reduce chronic poverty and promote human capital development in the country.

“The Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program will be geared towards the reduction of extreme hunger and chronic poverty, the achievement of universal primary education, promotion of gender equality and empowerment of women, improvement of maternal health, reduction of child mortality, and reduction of vulnerability to disasters,” said Legarda on Senate Bill No. 2117, which she co-authored.

The bill will institutionalize 4Ps as a permanent program of the government, with the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) as the central planning, coordinating, implementing and monitoring body of the program in cooperation with other government agencies and local government units (LGUs) to ensure that the beneficiaries include the poorest population, through the implementation of rigorous household assessment and application of a monitoring system that involves the collection of household data on a continuing basis.

Meanwhile, on Senate Bill No. 2172, which she also co-authored, the Senator said that a community-based monitoring system (CBMS) will generate updated and disaggregated data necessary in targeting beneficiaries of poverty reduction programs, conducting more comprehensive poverty analysis and needs prioritization, designing appropriate policies and interventions, and monitoring impact over time.

“Through the CBMS, we hope to be more efficient in the planning, program implementation and impact monitoring at the local level while empowering communities to participate in the process by using the data that we will collect and validate, especially on localized facts, figures, and maps on the different dimensions of poverty such as health, nutrition, water, sanitation, shelter, education, income, employment, security and participation,” said Legarda.

“We have to put in place a system that will ensure effective coordination across agencies, careful monitoring and efficient data collection to promote transparency and accountability and to see to it that the social assistance goes to the right people. We hope to achieve this through these measures that have been approved by the Senate,” Legarda concluded.