MANILA, Philippines - The Aquino government has already spent P4.127 billion of the P17.13-billion Conditional Cash Transfer (CCT) budget allotted for 2011.
Despite this, Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) Secretary Dinky Soliman faced the Senate finance oversight committee on Tuesday afternoon and said it still needs an additional P2 billion to cover over 2 million households for its Pantawid Pamilya program.
Senate Finance committee chair Franklin Drilon did not commit to supporting her request for additional funds, pending a certification from the Department of Budget and Management that there are enough funds.
As of May 31, the DSWD had already released P4.127 billion to 1.6 million households.
Soliman said the DSWD is short of funds because it started giving away cash before the programmed implementation in June.
She said the program has a high accomplishment rate in terms of health visits, education, and family development sessions, which are pre-conditions for the release of funds to beneficiaries.
Soliman also told the committee that it has an assessment mechanism, via a survey commissioned to see the effectiveness of the program.
The survey will be done by the Social Weather Stations (SWS) toward the latter part of 2011.
Both Drilon and Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile said they were satisfied with the explanation of Soliman.
Under the government's CCT program, the poorest of the poor gets P300 for each child (no more than 3 children and not older than 14 years old), while the mother or parent gets P500 every month on the condition that the children attend at least 85% of their school days, and submit to the government's health programs like vaccination.
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