MANILA, Philippines - Nearly 466,000 beneficiaries of the government’s conditional cash transfer (CCT) or Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program (4Ps) “are either dead or ghosts,” the chairman of the House appropriations committee said yesterday.
“These supposed beneficiaries have not been withdrawing hundreds of millions in funds allocated for them in the national budget,” Davao City Rep. Karlo Alexei Nograles told Social Welfare Secretary Judy Taguiwalo.
Quoting a report from the Commission on Audit, Nograles said 386,435 CCT account holders in state-owned Land Bank “have not withdrawn their money totaling P139 million from the time they opened their accounts.”
He did not say when the accounts were opened.
He said an additional 79,530 CCT account holders in Land Bank “have not touched their money for 2,190 days or six years, from 2009 to 2014.”
He said these accounts held from P2,801 to as much as P102,200 each.
“If these are not dead or ghost beneficiaries, there is another possibility: they are not among the poorest of the poor and should not be covered by the CCT program or 4Ps,” Nograles said.
From his statement, it was obvious that the irregularities took place during the time of Corazon Soliman as Department of Social Welfare and Development secretary of then president Benigno Aquino III.
The CCT program covers four million poor households. They receive up to P1,500 a month, with the money deposited at Land Bank. Beneficiaries are issued automated teller machine cards. They get financial assistance for an initial period of six years.
Nograles said there is also some P6.3 billion in CCT funds that have not been liquidated or accounted for.
Taguiwalo said she has hired financial consultants to go over the list of CCT beneficiaries to weed out dead or ghost beneficiaries, and double and multiple entries.
The consultants would also trace all the funds since the program started, she said.
She said it is possible that many beneficiaries have moved to other areas, which could explain their inability to withdraw their funds.
She added that it was the Land Bank and not the DSWD that failed to account for the P6.3 billion.
But Nograles told Taguiwalo she could not pass the buck to Land Bank.
“The bank has nothing to do with the program. It is just a conduit of funds. It is your department that controls the list of beneficiaries and that releases the funds,” he said.
As for the possibility that CCT beneficiaries have not withdrawn their money since they might have transferred to other places, Nograles said, “I cannot believe that, since they can use their ATM cards in their new areas of residence or work.”
He also said the DSWD has not been achieving its targets, leaving billions in unused funds.
“In one program alone, you have P8 billion in unused balance. And you are even asking us to give you more money. We should be cutting your budget so we can use the funds for other programs,” he said.
Other lawmakers blamed the DSWD for the many number of questionable beneficiaries of the CCT program.
They said DSWD field personnel did not want to involve congressmen in the identification of beneficiaries for fear that the program might be used for political patronage.
However, these personnel did not really know who are the poorest of the poor in the provinces, they said.
Taguiwalo sought the lawmakers’ cooperation in properly implementing the program.
After its morning session, the Nograles committee deferred consideration of the proposed P130-billion DSWD budget for 2017 in view of more queries from House members on how the department is using its funds.
It has set another hearing for Sept. 13.