4Ps, lifeline, and lifetime dependency

Almost 90% of Tabang Bikol Movement members in the communities are recipients of the 4Ps. Every month, they queue up for their payouts at the nearby designated Land Bank branch. This shared experience creates a sense of community, as they all feel the standard excitement after getting a notice from their Messenger group chats about the scheduled payouts for Ayuda. Everyone is happy, everyone benefits, and everyone feels a part of something bigger.

In countries like ours, Ayuda in the local dialect refers to a monthly financial assistance that government agencies provide to poor and needy families or individuals, with the primary intention of improving their children’s education and health needs. One such initiative is the 4Ps, also known as the Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program, or the Conditional Cash Transfer (CCT) program, the Philippines’ flagship poverty reduction program launched in 2007, piloted in 2008, and institutionalized in 2019 through Republic Act No. 11310. Eligible families receive monthly or bi-monthly cash transfers from a range of 2,000 to 6,000 pesos calculated based on the needs of the households (i.e., number of children in school and number of women under 49 years of age) on conditions that they ensure their children attend school, they register in a healthcare unit, and join medical visits.

I am now accustomed to the chatter and the rush when many would seek permission to leave their part-time jobs at a store to line up early at the open park with the DSWD and team leaders. A friend from the local barangay volunteered a valuable piece of information and challenged me to try to go to Pilahan during payouts for the 4Ps and the TUPAD, another Ayuda, this time from the DOLE social protection program for low-income individuals. He wonders why most of the faces of those in the DSWD 4Ps pila are the same as those in the TUPAD pila. TUPAD or the Tulong Pang-hanapbuhay sa Ating Disadvantaged/Displaced Workers is a component of the DOLE Integrated Livelihood and Emergency Employment Program (DILEEP). This community-based initiative gives short-term emergency employment to disadvantaged workers. Aren’t they supposed to be different batches of poor recipients?

During payouts, money lenders are happy; some families drop by a fast-food restaurant and take out spaghetti and burgers at least once a month. No guilty feelings. It was hard-earned and tiring, lining up the whole hot day at the open court. Manay Norma whispered she would be able to win back her loss at the Tong-its last month. Maryann looks forward to each payout because then she can pay her accumulated loans from the past weeks. Delfin will have cash to buy bags of fertilizer for his now almost dried up farmland, and his kumpare announced a night out on drinks after his wife arrived from the pila and got her share of the payouts. In a nearby neighborhood, the young basketball darling of the barangay, Tikboy, was teasing Minerva about her new hair rebond, “katas ng payout.” Still, she angrily denied it and threw a piece of mamon she was then munching on at Tikboy, who continued to joke about her new hairstyle. Tikboy, a member of the LGBT community, is sarcastic, saying that everybody is happy when payouts from the DSWD come – the money lender, the store owner with a long list of debts owed by her suki, and they would get paid priority. For Linda, her ATM card has been out of her physical possession for the past five months. “Nakasangla po,” she smiled, though embarrassed at her admission.

Several studies by the World Bank, the PIDS, the Asian Development Bank, UP, and others showed that the 4Ps or CCT programs provided significant temporary relief and, in some cases, long-term benefits. They contributed to a substantial increase in children’s school attendance, seminars, medical vaccination, and visits to the local health units. On the other hand, malnutrition remains a significant problem among schoolchildren in barangays in Bicol and elsewhere. Some studies, however, suggested that the short-term effects on children’s education and health were insignificant. The 4Ps still have a limited impact on children’s long-term development, particularly after they enter the workforce. After decades of implementation, the CCT has remained a lifeline and a lifetime dependency for most low-income family recipients. The COA reported in 2022 that 90 percent of 4Ps families are still poor despite the 4Ps. Real talk shows that CCT, with the low level of education and awareness of the recipients, can be used and abused to foster dependency, mendicancy, dole-out mentality, political patronage, and encourage laziness and anti-social activities like gambling.

The 4Ps, as CCT, is modeled after similar programs in Latin America, particularly Mexico’s Oportunidades and Brazil’s Bolsa Família, which aim to break the cycle of poverty by providing cash grants to low-income families, primarily for health, nutrition, and education. It has become a social protection and poverty reduction program also in Honduras, Kenya, Colombia, Brazil, Nicaragua, Nigeria, and Ecuador. China has adopted it as an anti-poverty strategy for the future, having successfully lifted 500 million Chinese out of poverty.

A study in China suggests that the CCT program can be more effective when combined with other interventions, such as state investments in education, healthcare, and infrastructure, as well as industry, agriculture, and programs that empower women and promote their participation in social and economic activities. This highlights the urgency for additional interventions. Although studies have demonstrated that the program alleviated poverty for many families, ultimately, a lack of access to better-quality and higher-paid jobs for the poorest parts of the population has hindered the program’s ability to lift people out of poverty in the long term.