4Ps brings more kids to school in Cebu City

CEBU, Philippines - The Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program (4Ps) said to have helped bring children back to school, as far as implementation in Cebu City is concerned.

This was revealed by Delia Kiamco, Cebu City Department of Education supervisor, and Tears Zapatalo-Lim of the Department of Social Welfare and Development-Cebu City during the Kapihan sa PIA yesterday morning.

Kiamco said the past school year, calendar year 2010-2011, saw more children of 4Ps beneficiaries going to school and incurring fewer absences. The trend can reportedly be seen from grade one to six based on the daily attendance. 

Last year, there were 99,231 enrollees in public grade schools in the city but this reportedly increased by 5,122, bringing the number to 104,353 total enrollees.

“The school enrollment and attendance rates of school children have significantly increased,” Kiamco said. Sending their children to school is one requirement for recipients to continue availing of the benefits of 4Ps. The children are required to maintain at least 85 percent attendance in school.

Lim said there are 4,372 beneficiaries in Cebu City coming from 23 barangays. 

Ten barangays with 2,616 beneficiaries started benefitting from the program since 2009, including Mambaling, Inayawan, Tejero, T. Padilla, Sudlon I, Sudlon II, Tagbao, Kalunasan, Sawang Calero and Duljo-Fatima.

For the first quarter of this year, 2,420 beneficiaries were added from 13 barangays, including Carreta, Ermita, Suba, Basak Pardo, Pasil, Mabolo, Sambag II, Cambinocot, Busay, Luz, Lorega, Basak San Nicolas and Bulacao Pardo.

The 4Ps is a poverty and social development strategy of the national government that provides conditional cash grants to extremely poor households to improve their health, nutrition and education to children, especially those aged below 14 years old.

The beneficiaries were selected through the National Household Targeting System for Poverty Reduction (NHTS-PR) using the Proxy Means Test that determines the socio-economic category of the households by looking at certain proxy variables, such as ownership of assets, type of housing, family’s livelihood and access to water and sanitation facilities.

Eligible households receive P6,000 per year or P500 per month for health and nutrition expenses and P3,000 for one (1) school year or 10 months or P300 per month per child, to a maximum of three (3) children per household, for educational expenses.

Administered by the DSWD, the 4Ps aims to address the country’s low educational achievement, high maternal and infant mortality rate, high malnutrition rate and high incidence of child labor. — (FREEMAN)