DSWD: Almost 800K families back as 4Ps beneficiaries, 200K on waitlist

Close to 800,000 families have been reinstated as beneficiaries of the Department of Social Welfare and Development’s(DSWD) Balik Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipinong Program (4Ps) after graduating from the poverty alleviation program.

As a result, the new applicants numbering around 200,000 households have been waitlisted.

According to Marisol Abdurahman’s "24 Oras" report on Thursday, a total of 793,000 re-activated families were added to the current 4.2 million households who were active beneficiaries of the 4Ps.

“Nagbalik na yung mga dati na non-poor at naging subsistence o survival kaya hindi agad nakapasok [yung waitlisted], because nakita nga ng management, particularly ni (DSWD) Secretary Rex (Gatchalian), na hindi pa lahat [ng graduates] handa na talagang mag exit from the program,” said 4Ps National Program Management Office Director Gemma Gabuya

The DSWD pointed out the low graduation rate of the program.

Only 200,000 families were said to have finished the program within the past decade, bringing to 500,000 the total families who graduated from the 4Ps since the program began in 2007.

DSWD initially suspended the cash grants to almost 800,000 beneficiaries in 2023 after the program reached the maximum number of beneficiaries. In December 2023, the agency announced the families initially removed from the list would continue receiving assistance after an evaluation of their status.

Institutionalized under Republic Act 11310, the 4Ps provides conditional cash transfers to qualified poor households for a maximum period of seven years.

Farmers, fishermen, homeless families, indigenous peoples, those from the informal sector, and those living in isolated and disadvantaged areas, including places without electricity, are the ones qualified under the program.

According to the law, the beneficiaries would be given a monthly grant of not lower than P300 per child enrolled in daycare and elementary programs for a maximum of 10 months a year, P500 per child enrolled in junior high school, and P700 per child enrolled in senior high school.

A health and nutrition grant of not lower than P750 per month for a maximum of 12 months a year will also be given to the beneficiaries.—Jiselle Anne Casucian/LDF, GMA Integrated News