Gatchalian assails gov't failure to fully implement cash transfer to poor Filipinos

MANILA, Philippines — Sen. Sherwin Gatchalian assailed the government for its failure to fully implement the unconditional cash transfer program intended to cushion the inflationary impact of the government’s tax reform law on the country’s poor.

Gatchalian said that senators voted to support the government’s Tax Reform for Acceleration and Inclusion law because of the assurances and information given to them during congressional hearings on the measure.

He said that the Senate would have arrived at a different decision if government agencies would not be able to keep their word.

“This is an issue for us senators. We all know dispensing 200 pesos to 10 million households will be a big challenge, but we were assured that by 2018, all beneficiaries would receive their part,” Gatchalian, who is the chairman of the Senate Committee on Economic Affairs, said during its public hearing TRAIN-driven inflation and potential mitigating measures.

READ: BSP sees manageable inflation for 2018 to 2019 

On Wednesday, Gatchalian said that more time was needed to fully assess the inflationary impact of the tax reform law.

He said, however, that he was in favor of increasing the government’s financial support to the poor, from the current P200 to P450 to enable them to better cope with the rising prices of goods and services.

“If you look at the poorest 30% of our population, their biggest consumption, 70% of their expenditure, is on food. Inflation is at its peak. This means, you have to cover the increase in food prices of the lower 30% of the population,” he said on Wednesday.

During the deliberations on TRAIN in the Senate last year, the Department of Finance assured senators that the P24-billion unconditional cash transfer program would be in full swing by the time the law kicked into effect on Jan. 1, 2018.

However, the Department of Social Welfare and Development admitted during the hearing that it was able to distribute financial aid only to around four million households. The new target is for the disbursement of the money to the remaining six million families by September this year.

“As of the moment, DSWD is looking for ways and means to cut down the payouts. However, we have physical constraints that we have to consider. One, for example, there are areas that are hard to reach, and transporting money - physical money - to the nearest Landbank branch takes a lot of logistics planning,” DSWD Assistant Secretary Noel Macalalad said during the hearing.

Sen. Paolo Benigno “Bam” Aquino IV on Thursday filed Senate Bill 1798 seeking to empower government agencies to suspend the imposition of additional petrol taxes under the TRAIN law if the three-month inflation target exceeded official estimates.

The country’s inflation rate for April surged to 4.5 percent, the highest in five years, pushing the year-to-date inflation to 4.1 percent. This is above the 2 to 4 percent target range set by the Banko Sentral ng Pilipinas.

According to the International Monetary Fund, Philippine inflation for 2018 will be at 4.2 percent and will ease to 3.8 percent by next year.