Chapter 2 Review of Related Literature
The review of the literature for this study focuses on nature of the Conditional Cash Transfer Program (4P’s) (4P’s) and and the rationale behind b ehind its implementation. This chapter begins with the definition of the program as defined b y other researchers in various fields using different instruments to identify its significance to the government’s goal in alleviating alleviating poverty in the country. Consequently, this chapter presents the following: a)
the advantages and disadvantages of the program;
b) different concepts of conditional cash transfer program as being implement ed in other foreign countries; and c) different issues and challenges revolving revolving around the paradigm of 4P’s. The information drew out from the review of related literature germane to uncovering the implications of the program to the political landscape of the Philippines, particularly in the local politics of Himamaylan City, Negros Occidental.
Conditional Cash Tran sfer (4P’s) in the Philippines
According to (Mella, Osido, & Suing, 2011), a conditional cash transfer program is a program implemented by the government where money (cash grants) is given to eligible beneficiaries given that these beneficiaries comply with certain conditions such as nutrition, education, family development sessions, and other such services offered by the government. It is a means of helping the beneficiaries b eneficiaries through provision of social and medical assistance and 1
increasing the investment in human capital for society b y providing education to those who cannot afford it. The Department of Social Welfare and Development even claimed that since 2007, the PantawidPamilyang Pilipino Program (4Ps) of the Philippines is the conditional cash transfer program implemented by them, along with cooperative partner institutions such as the Department of Education, Department of Health, Department of the Interior and Local Government, and various other government institutions. Consequently, the Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program was patterned after the conditional cash transfer programs in Latin American and African countries which have been proven successful as a poverty reduction and social development measure.(DSWD, 2011) The 4Ps is targeted at chronic poor households with children aged 0-14 years old who are located in poor areas receiveing cash grants range from PhP500 to PhP1, 400 per household per month, depending on the number of eligible children. In exchange for the financial resources that the Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino program provide to families are the families’ fulfillment of certain tasks such as ensuring that its children’s attendance in school, regular visits to community health centers, participation in government-sponsored feeding programs and attendance in more specific trainings, to name a few (Somera, 2010). According to Fernandez and Olfindo (2012) the program is seen more broadly as “a vehicle for enhancing coordination within the government in assisting the poor and for increasing the effectiveness of social protection programs.” According to Department of Social Welfare and Development’s (DSWD) , the mechanics of the 4Ps/CCT program are straightforward. It will give cash grants to ben eficiary households complying with the following conditions:
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a) pregnant women avail pre- and post-natal care and have a trained health professional at childbirth; b) children 0-5 years old receive regular health check-ups and vaccinations; children 614 years old take de-worming pills twice a year; c) children 0-14 years old attend day care, pre-school, elementary or high school (as appropriate) at least 85% of the time; and d) parents attend ‘family development sessions’. Upon complying with the health conditions the beneficiary household will receive PhP500 (or PhP6, 000 per year) and PhP300 per child per month, up to a maximum three children, for the education conditions (or PhP3, 000 per child for the 10-month school year). Likewise, a household with three qualified children can potentially receive PhP1, 400 per month during the school year or as much as PhP15, 000 annually - cash grants can be received for at most five years, most likely through a Land Bank ATM/cash card given to the mother. CCTs were piloted in a few thousand households in the last half of 2007. Formal program implementation started in 2008 and was targeted to reach one million beneficiaries by 2010. Based on the United Nations Millennium Development Goals, the main rationale behind the idea of Conditional Cash Transfer Program is to eradicate extreme hunger and poverty in countries implementing this program. “Poverty is about a lack of power. Poverty alleviation should thus also address situations in which some people have few opportunities to exercise their rights. Rather than thinking of the poor as needy persons awaiting hand-outs, recognize their basic rights to common resources” (Rosenberg, 2007).
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As a way of fulfilling its commitment to achieve the MDG’s, the Philippines created its own version of the program and named it as PantawidPamilyang Pilipino Program, a flagship agendum by the current administration in addressing the call for alleviating poverty in the country. “The Philippines has been battling against poverty for over several years now. The problem with poverty was inherited by every president, the highest ranking official of the republic. Because poverty continues to worsen every now and then, the leaders of the country have their own strategies and policy adaptations to combat this serious issue” (Fabros, 2012) Secretary General of the National Statistical Coordination Board, said in hi s presentation of the 2009 Official Poverty Statistics that a Filipino needed PhP 974 in 2009 to meet his or her monthly food needs and PhP 1,403 to stay out of poverty. In 2009, a family of five needed PhP 4, 869 monthly incomes to meet food needs and PhP 7, 017 to stay out of poverty. Results of the latest Social Weather Stations (SWS) survey also revealed that one in every five Filipino households, or an estimated 4.3 million families, experienced involuntary hunger in the third quarter of the year 2011(Virola, 2011). As what (Calvo, 2011) explained, “The Conditional Cash Transfer (CCT) programs serve as the government’s answers to the pressing issues regarding poverty (Mella, Osido, & Suing, 2011). CCT are programs that provide cash benefits to finance the basic needs and foster investment in human capital to extremely poor households. These benefits are conditioned on certain behaviors, usually related to investments in nutrition, health, and education.
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The Advantages of Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program
The CCT program is believed to be the answer in the call of addressing both future poverty, by fostering human capital accumulation among the young as a means of breaking the intergenerational transmission of poverty and current poverty, by providing income support for consumption in the short run (Rawlings & Rubio, 2005). Indeed, the main objective of the 4Ps and other CCT programs is to prevent inter-generational transference of poverty and help break the infinite cycle of poverty by providing the children the suitable educational and health assistance so as to help them develop the facilities for a better future. Investing in children’s human capital and ensuring that they grow into educated and healthy adults, is the equivalent of teaching them how to fish. Healthy, educated children ultimately have more choices in life and are able to become productive members of society (Bloom, 2008). Furthermore, the implementation of the 4Ps lessens the incidence of child labor and other forms of child abuse. There are two interrelated mechanisms found to help combat child labor according to other countries. First, through their cash subsidy component, schooling’s directs costs are reduced, thereby inducing families to send their children to school, as opposed to work. Second, these programs require families to have their children attend school, 85% of the school days per month in the case of the 4Ps, in exchange to cash subsidy. Indeed, this requirement increases the time children spend in school and reduces the time they can allocate to work (Gee, 2010). According to (DSWD, 2009) , there is a noticeable increase in the number of enrollees in many elementary schools in areas included in the scope of the 4Ps, and kindergarten classes were being established to answer the need of the community in compliance to the condition of sending 0-5 years old children in day care centers and preschools.
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In the long run, the 4Ps as well as the other CCT programs will establish social equality and mobility through education (Mella, Osido, & Suing, 2011). As mentioned by (Gundlach, Pablo, & Weiser, 2010), the centrality of education in poverty-reduction policies stems from the belief that education is a powerful equalizer and the main asset of most people. “The 4Ps also promotes gender empowerment seeing as the responsibility of managing the cash grants are given to the mother. This decision is based on the experience in CCT programs showing that women make relatively better use of grant money by using it to purchase food and/or other necessities such as medicines, transportations and school supplies. In the n utshell, the underlying concept of the CCT programs, and of the 4Ps as wells, is: once individuals are healthy, better fed, and educated, they will be able to overcome poverty in the long run” (Valencia, 2009). The Disadvantages of Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program
In the realistic view of (Coady & Parker, 2002), like any other government program, the 4Ps also have its disadvantages that may encumber its helpful benefits. One of the most crucial characteristic of the 4Ps and other CCT programs implemented in other countries is its being a ‘demand-side’ intervention instead of being a ‘supply-side’ intervention. That is, in order to be considered as a beneficiary of the program, one must concede with the government’s demands and conditions. Furthermore, as previously mentioned, poverty in the country is not only caused by the lack of economical resources, but also because of socio-economic and political factors that prevent the equality and distribution of resources. Although the 4Ps aims to provide the poor with the education which is, otherwise, inaccessible, it doe s not directly answer the socioeconomic and political problems that are the primary cause of poverty. In the case of the 4Ps in the Philippines, it does not answer the issues regarding the p olitical and economic elite families. “And poverty can only be totally alleviated if there are programs that could target its 6
roots”(Mella, Osido, & Suing, 2011). According to (Cuesta, 2007), the 4Ps will also encounter some difficulties in achieving support from the other social classes, mainly because it d oes not benefit middle-income groups which have also been steadily affected by limited universal services and decreases in employment. “Another major disadvantage of the 4Ps implementation is that it requires a huge amount of finance which we do not have at the present. The 4Ps is a loan driven program, much of the funds constituting the conditional cash grants given to beneficiaries are generated from loans abroad, particularly from the United States. By the tail-end of August 2010, the Asian Development Bank (ADB) approved a US$400 million loan specifically for the 4Ps which will run from 2011 to 2014. This comprises 45.2 per cent of the total cost of US$884.2 million, where US$484 million serves as the government’s counterpart. Having ADB’s US$400 million in addition to the World Bank’s US$405 million, makes two-thirds of the whole 4Ps from 2009 to 2014 comprised of loans” (Somera, 2010). “The Aquino administration’s conditional cash transfers (CCTs), which take up the largest part of its PantawidPamilyang Pilipino Program (4Ps), have many points of appeal. Giving cash to poor families appeal to those inclined to charity. Those concerned about social welfare appreciate the focus on maternal and child health and on basic education. Technocrats in turn are comfortable talking about ‘human capital’, ‘household targeting systems’, ‘social resiliency’, ‘social protection’ and measurable deliverables. Yet while CCTs at first glance seem unobjectionable, looking at them from a progressive social development perspective and in the concrete conditions of the Philippines raises some serious concerns. They may well provide welcome relief to beneficiary families but
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if the economy still does not get the radical reforms it so badly needs then the root causes of poverty will remain – and Filipinos will remain as poor as ever” (IBON, 2010). CCT Programs in Other Countries
4Ps is patterned from different concepts of Conditional Cash Transfer Programs from other countries. The mechanism of how the program is being implemented vary and so as the feedbacks and assessments of their respective beneficiaries. Based on the studies of (Rawlings & Rubio, 2005), several developing economies have recently introduced conditional cash transfer programs, which provide money to poor families contingent on certain behavior, usually investments in human capital, such as sending children to school or bringing them to health centers. The approach is both an alternative to more traditional social assistance programs and a demand-side complement to the supply of health and education services. Unlike most development initiatives, conditional cash transfer programs have been subject to rigorous evaluations of their effectiveness using experimental or quasi-experimental methods. Ev aluation results for programs launched in Colombia, Honduras, Jamaica, Mexico, Nicaragua, and Turkey reveal successes in addressing many of the failures in delivering social a ssistance, such as weak poverty targeting, disincentive effects, and limited welfare impacts. There is clear evidence of success from the first generation of programs in Colombia, Mexico, and Nicaragua in increasing enrollment rates, improving preventive health care, and raising household consumption. Many questions remain unanswered, however, including the potential of conditional cash transfer programs to function well under different conditions, to address a broader range of challenges among poor and vulnerable populations, and to prevent the intergenerational transmission of poverty.
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“In recent years there has been growing attention concerning the use of cash and conditional cash transfer programs as part of broader poverty reduction strategies. Since the late 1990’s Conditional Cash Transfer (CCT) programs have spread rapidly. While "first generation" CCT programs originated in Brazil and Mexico, CCT programs now are found across a wide range of countries and contexts.Increasing educational attainment around the world is one of the key aims of the Millennium Development Goals. Cash transfer programs, both conditional and unconditional, are a popular social protection tool in developing countries that aim, among other things, to improve education outcomes in developing countries. The debate over whether these programs should include conditions has been at the forefront of recent global policy discussions. This systematic review aims to complement the existing evidence on the effectiveness of these programs in improving schooling outcomes and help inform the debate surrounding the design of cash transfer programs” (Baird, G, Ferreira, & Woolcock, 2013). In this regard, (Fernald, Gertler, & Neufeld, 2008) stated that - many governments have implemented conditional cash transfer (CCT) programmes with the goal of improving options for poor families through interventions in health, nutrition, and education. Families enrolled in CCT programmes receive cash in exchange for complying with certain conditions: a) preventive health requirements and nutrition supplementation; b) education and monitoring designed to improve health outcomes; and c) promote positive behaviour change. Their aim was to disaggregate the effects of cash transfer from those of other programme components. In an intervention that began in 1998 in Mexico, low-income communities (n=506)
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were randomly assigned to be enrolled in a CCT programme (Oportunidades, formerly Progresa) immediately or 18 months later. In 2003, children (n=2449) aged 24 — 68 months who had been enrolled in the programme their entire lives were assessed for a wide variety of outcomes. Our results suggest that the cash transfer component of Oportunidades is associated with better outcomes in child health, growth, and development “The Education Sector Support Project, which started in 2005, assists the government with its goal of expanding access to educational services by addressing constraints in supply, demand, quality and efficiency, and it has a special focus on poor and underserved communities. The project is expanding educational facilities in poor areas, delivering scholarship programs to poor children, providing training and capacit y building at local levels to improve education services, and addressing specific implementation issues. The Kenya Cash Transfer Program for Orphans and Vulnerable Children (CT-OVC) is the government's flagship social protection programme, reaching over 130,000 households and 260,000 orphans and vulnerable children across the country as of late 2011. Their objective is to investigate whether the CT-OVC has changed the preferences of households in terms of their consumption behaviour. Comparison in the standard difference-in-differences programme effects with ex-ante expected effects given baseline expenditure elasticities. As a result of the programme, participating households had significantly higher expenditures than control households on food, health, and clothing and significantly less spending on alcohol and tobacco. Programme impacts were also seen on spending in four of seven food groups. To test whether the programme simply moves households along their total expenditure Engel curve or in fact shifts that curve, we compare ex-ante expected behaviours with the ex-post actual response of 10
households to the programme. In fact, about one-half of the consumption categories ex-ante predicted and ex-post actual effects are significantly different, implying that preferences may have changed among programme recipients. Afterwards, they directly conducted a test whether the programme has induced significant changes in expenditure elasticities (as implied by their associated marginal propensities to consume) and find evidence of this for alcohol and tobacco, and to a lesser extent for food, health and transportation and communication (The Kenya CTOVC Evaluation Team, 2012). “In an attempt to increase the impact of income support programs, the Government of Pakistan launched a new conditional cash transfer program (CCT) in 2006, the Child Support Program (CSP), to be administered by the Pakistan Bait-ul-Mal (PBM). This program, currently in its pilot phase, is to pay quarterly benefits to FSP beneficiary households with children, conditional on their children enrolling in and attending school regularly. In other words, the CSP provides monetary incentives for poor households with young children (5 to 12 years of age) to invest in human capital accumulation while contributing to short-term poverty alleviation. Although Pakistan runs stipends programs, this is the first poverty-targeted CCT Program.
In order to evaluate the effects of the pilot CSP program, a baseline survey was conducted in 10 selected districts between October 2006 to March 2007. Original treatment districts are Bhakkar, Tharparkar, Kohistan, Kharan and Ghanch ey and the original control districts include Layyah, Batagram, Skardu, Badin and Panjgoor. From each district a fixed number of UCs were selected randomly. However, in practice the CSP was only piloted in the three treatment districts (Bhakkar, Tharparkar, Kohistan)
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instead of five districts during the implementation stage. The baseline data were collected in randomly selected 2600 households and about 150 schools in these ten districts” (Bank, 2009). Political Implications of 4P’s in the Philippines
Being a government-funded program in its nature, 4Ps is vulnerable to the influence of politics thus affecting its genuine intention which is to provide assistance to the poor and needy. Even the officials of the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) warned local government officials against using the National Government’s conditional cash transfer program for their political interests (SUN STAR CEBU , 2013). This tendency by local politicians was particularly pronounced during the run-up to the May 10, 2010 national and local elections, says 4Ps public relations officer Pamela Caperina-Susara. There were candidates, she says, who tried to sway Pantawid Pamilya beneficiaries to vote in their favor, citing removal from the program as a repercussion for unfavorable votes” (PJIC, 2011). According to (Guila, 2011), it also serves as a tool for political patronage from the highest to the lowest level of governance as well as venues for massive graft and corruptions. Even though the government devises safeguards in monitoring the operations of the program and give the lie to the notions of Pantawid Pamilya positive effects on Filipino families, factual accounts at the grassroots level tell otherwise. Pantawid Pamilya staff barred from joining partisan activities was reminded to refrain from engaging in partisan political activities, most especially those assigned in the implementation of the Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program (PantawidPamilya). Violators will, at the very least, face suspension, warned Assistant Secretary for Operations TeoduloRomo Jr. He was h ere 12
recently for the signing of a memorandum of agreement with 15 local government units from the provinces of Aklan, Antique, Iloilo and Negros Occidental for the expansion of the 4Ps. Romo specifically warned personnel assigned in the 4Ps program against allowing themselves to be used by politicians. It had come to the attention of DSWD recently that unscrupulous people were using the program for their selfish political agenda. Twelve “epal” (Filipino slang for shameless or credit-grabbing people) politicians in Western Visayas reportedly claimed the 4Ps as their own. As of last month, 296,365 households in Region 6 were already covered by the program. Complaints reached DSWD that some election candidates were using the 4Ps to gain leverage over the poor. Specifically, beneficiaries were threatened of being delisted from the program. DSWD maintained that only its national and regional offices can delist beneficiaries from the 4Ps. 4Ps is a human development program of the national government that invests in the health and education of poor households, particularly of children aged zero to 14 years old. Patterned after the conditional cash transfer scheme implemented in other developing countries, 4Ps provides cash grants to beneficiaries provided that they comply with the set of conditions required by the program. DSWD Regional Director Evelyn Macapobre said politicians are not allowed to claim credit for the program, even during the cash distribution so that they will not use the activity for politicking. Macapo bre’s predecessor, MindaBrigoli, weeks before she left Western Visayas for a new assignment also warned DSWD organic personnel including volunteer workers of the agency against campaigning for their preferred election candidates. “We must remain apolitical. That is a very clear directive from our Secretary (Corazon “Dinky” Soliman),” said Brigoli. She urged the public to report any DSWD personnel publicly known to be close allies of certain politicians so she can act immediately on the matter.
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According to Romo, DSWD is improving the 4Ps implementation. sssssTo further shield it from undue politicking, DSWD has launched a nationwide advocacy campaign dubbed “Bawalang Epal Dito.” The campaign aims to protect 4Ps beneficiaries from baseless threats of removal from the program and external pressures if they will not support certain politicos (PANAY News, 2013). Since CCTs are administered primarily at the local level, opening the possibility that incumbents having the power, can manipulate the course of CCT funds, basically by adding or delisting names from the roster of beneficiaries depending on who the resident supports in the election. Moreover , even without deliberate manipulation, CCTs unintentionally aid incumbents’ stay in power noting that CCT beneficiaries are unfairly distributed across the country. Thus, it is likely that incumbents turned to be more popular and irremovable from office if there is a concentration of CCT within the area than political officials that has low or no concentration of CCT in their respective localities. Likewise, political contenders in CCT-intensive areas may have a much harder time being elected in office simply because incumbents are able to enjoy leverage in having CCTs distributed under their leadership and during their term of office. If not, changes are to be made in the approach on how the CCT beneficiaries are distributed geographically; eventually 4Ps may even make it difficult to abolish political dynasties in the long run (Punongbayan, 2013). “A number of municipalities are tightly controlled by political d ynasties and, thus, I can test whether the effects are dependent upon the political environment. In a competitive political environment, incumbent vote share is 26 percentage-points higher in municipalities where the program was implemented in all villages than in municipalities where the program was
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implemented in half of them. The program had no impact in municipalities with low levels of political competition” (Labonne, 2013). Comelec officials in Pangasinan province perceived PantawidPamilyang Pilipino Program (4Ps) is being used by aspiring barangay candidates to lure residents to register for the synchronized barangay and Sangguniang Kabataan elections in October. On the other hand , according to provincial election supervisor Marino Salas, residents interviewed by Comelec said that they are not afraid that they would not be included in the 4Ps or be delisted from the program if they did not support certain candidates (Cardinoza, 2013). “DSWD-ARMM is currently rolling out a media campaign to inform the public that no local politician has the authority to add or delist CCT beneficiaries called “Bawal ang EPAL dito” cam paign. This action as the department is worried that some politicians may take advantage of the Pantawid Pamilya program to gain leverage for the May 2013 elections. In anticipation of such incidents, the DSWD-ARMM is ready to receive reports, feedbacks, and messages about politicians or candidates who may claim to have the authority to enlist and delist household beneficiaries from the program” (Mediang Bayan, 2013). Stated by (Punongbayan, 2013),”Given this style of local campaigning, the government’s 4Ps initiative (what with its massive funds) will surely not go unnoticed and u ntouched. In fact some politicians have already reportedly threatened to use 4Ps as a tool to reward supporters and punish non-supporters.” Furthermore, some figures shows that there is really political touch on the CCT program. In November 2012, the Commission on Audit (COA) released a report that found critical problems 15
in the implementation of the program, including a decline in beneficiaries in 2011, billions in unaccounted disbursements, deficient supervision in household registration and questionable use of funds. A COA-conducted survey also found that not all beneficiaries were really poor, yet were included in the program. Supporting with the COA is the statement of by Juliet de LozaCudia,“Samantala, natuklasan umano ng Commission on Audit sa 2012 annual audit report ng Department of Social Welfare and Development sa CCT payroll mula Enero hanggang Agosto ng taong 2012 ay doble-doble o nagkaroon ng duplication ng mga pangalan ng CCT beneficiaries na naitala sa 4,443 kung saan pumalo sa P17,435,700 ang kabuu ang grant” Thus, Punongbayan, (2013), many studies have shown that well-crafted and well-implemented CCTs can work. But the benefits usually take a long time to manifest since CCTs are really not about reducing poverty now but reducing poverty in the future. The country’s own 4Ps initiative is still in its infancy, and its success will inevitably hinge on its being protected from political abuse especially in the upcoming elections. Finally, CCT in the Philippines is most likely vulnerable for political purpose especially during elections and c an be a machinery of politicians in expanding and maintaining themselves in power. In fact, if this inadequate political behavior will be compensated, it is in no doubt CCT program will never be efficient and will not be a help in reducing poverty in the Philippines. The relevant literatures about the 4Ps are enough proof for the validity of the researchers’ assertion of the presence of politics in the implementation of the program. The general assessments about the program, being under the influenced of politics and politicking, is predicted to be present even in the local political sphere of Himamaylan City, Negros Occidental. Hence, this chapter invites more data collection to expose the darker effect of this as the program is contaminated with unfortunate realities of politics along the process of its implementation. 16
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