ENROLLING resettled Metro Manila estero residents to the government’s conditional cash transfer program has been broached by Senate President Pro Tempore Ralph Recto as an option to stop them from returning to their old dangerous dwellings such as waterways.
Social Welfare Secretary Dinky Soliman welcomed Recto’s proposal on Tuesday, saying some informal settlers who will be relocated are already members of the CCT.
“We are ensuring that their information is being transferred to Region 3 (Central Luzon). We are also doing second round assessment to ensure that no one is left behind,” she said in a text message to Sun.Star.
Some 80 of the more than 600 informal settler families (ISFs) living along the San Juan River were transferred on Monday to government-owned housing units in San Jose del Monte City, Bulacan. The relocation is expected to be done in two weeks.
So far, 4,800 housing units located in Trece Martires in Cavite and in San Jose del Monte, Bocaue, Norzagaray and Pandi in Bulacan are now ready for occupancy while an additional 4,200 units will also be completed by December.
To make it fair for the government, Recto said a resettled ISF can only receive the CCT’s monthly stipend worth P1,400 for as long as they stay put in their new homes.
Children of CCT beneficiaries must also regularly attend school and go to government clinics for check up, putting pressure on government to build schools and clinics in or near relocation sites.
The CCT or the Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program (4Ps) has a budget of P44.3 billion this year, enough to cover 3.9 million families.
This will grow to P62.6 billion in 2014 to accommodate 4.3 million families, take in an additional 131,000 homeless families and extend its coverage to 10.2 million high school students, the last two costing P2 billion and P12.3 billion, respectively.
Recto, who is also chairman of the sub-committee on finance, may ask officials of the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) if they can slash operating cost to give way to the enrolment of more transferred ISFs in CCT.
He said 600 poor families will benefit from the program for every P10 million in savings.
The CCT program will spend P5.4 billion for operation and administrative services next year, broken down as follows: P3.38 billion (salaries and wages); P533 million (trainings); P550 million (bank service fees); P141 million (information materials and publicity); P356 million (monitoring and evaluation); P372 million (administrative expenses) and P80 million (capital outlays).
Recto said he will only push the suggestion if next year’s CCT budget cannot absorb the magnitude of danger zone dwellers in Metro Manila who will be relocated – 20,000 families in the next 12 months out of the estimated total of 104,000. (Virgil Lopez/Sunnex)
